The Phenomenon of Health Tourism Organizational Cooperation in Nordic Countries

Today’s tourism faces challenges arising from tourism’s vulnerability to unprecedented situations or recessions such as COVID-19. Despite the challenges of the external environment, the tourism industry has developed resilience in its own way to overcome economic, social, health and environmental risks (such as natural disasters, infectious diseases, etc.). In this situation, the health tourism segment, a combination of proactive and reactive health care and tourism services, can be considered as a solution to help build resilience to current and future recessions and increase the economic and social impact of tourism. One of the reasons explaining this positive shift is that the integration/convergence of many entities that make up health tourism, and this convergence can create a broad positive economic and social impact on the sending and receiving countries by creating a transfer effect on the surrounding regions (at micro-/-macro levels). Organizational collaboration is critical to health tourism as it integrates diverse expertise, resources and services to ensure high quality care and a seamless experience for patients traveling for treatment. Effective collaboration between healthcare providers, travel agencies, hotels and government agencies increases service efficiency, patient satisfaction and trust. Research from these collaborations is critical to identifying best practices, addressing challenges, and developing strategies to improve coordination and ultimately drive industry growth and sustainability.