engleski

PUBLIC RELATIONS AS A TOOL FOR DEVELOPING MEDICAL TOURISM USING THE ISTRA HOTEL IN VARAŽDIN AS AN EXAMPLE

Over the last decade, medical tourism has proved itself as a powerful driver of tourism traffic, attracting tourists who consider both quality and value when making a purchase decision. Due to its highly favourable geographical location and good transport connections with other parts of the country (and the world), Northwest Croatia is gradually becoming the hotspot for medical tourism in Southeast Europe. The paper explores medical tourism in order to establish how the globalization and the 21st century technological advances have facilitated the development of public relations, thereby enhancing community cohesion, information exchange, communication, and connectivity. In today’s environment, public relations have become highly important for further development of medical tourism. The paper focuses on medical tourism and the Istra Hotel. It defines the concept of public relations in practice ; investigates the process and activities involved in public relations and marketing ; describes the main features and characteristics of medical tourism ; analyzes the strategic plan for the development of medical tourism using the Istra Hotel as an example ; describes the state of medical tourism in Croatia and looks at the competition ; examines the marketing environment ; proposes the strategy and manner in which public relations should function ; explores consumer behaviour ; and identifies target consumer groups. A survey of consumer opinions and attitudes towards hotels and medical tourism has been conducted.

globalization, public relations, medical tourism, Northwest Croatia

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