Systematic Literature Review of Health Tourism Innovation

Innovation is considered as one of the most important aspects for businesses and this importance is prominently present for both establishing and expanding effective & successful health tourism businesses. Innovation concept allows health tourism establishments to improve themselves and provide differential advantage while competing in marketplace for attracting new customers. Based on this impor - tance of innovation within the context of health tourism establishments, the aim of this study is to reveal the gaps in the literature of innovation in health tourism entrepreneurship field. Furthermore, this paper aims to examine the whole field in a comprehensive manner by also focusing on the related fields and relevant promising areas for research in health tourism innovation. Main significance of this study is two-fold. Firstly, this study aims to provide a short review of the literature within the topic of health tourism innovation. Secondly, study attempts to reveal the prominent research gaps in health tourism innovation. Based on the analysis conducted, results of this study remark that a significant research gap exists in the innovation studies in spa and wellness tourism field. Furthermore, results showed that most of the studies in the field employ qualitative research methods. Most common study topics within the field are found as the measurement and determi- nants of innovativeness, impact on costs, innovation’s relationship with sustainability, drivers of innovation, collaboration, aspects of innovation on success, various innovation types’ effectiveness on health tourism establishments and successful innovation applications.