Scholarly record

WATER RESOURCES FOR MEDICAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN LATVIA

Una Libkovska

Abstract

The possibilities to develop health resorts and balneological or spa and thalassotherapy centres in the Baltic Sea region countries have not yet been fully analysed. The water resources in Latvia have been used historically and still in nowadays could be used for different types of treatments more effective. The core questions for a medical tourism development are products, demand and service quality. It is marked in the Baltic Sea country (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) development strategy that environmental management has a direct positive impact on the development of health tourism, to which identification and use of medical resources is very important. In the framework of the International Cooperation Project of the Baltic States coastal municipalities conducted research on available medical resources and their possible use when developing resorts and spas. In this article, the authors analyse the effect of historical importance of usage water resources (sea, inland water and ground (mineral water) for the future development of medical products with perspective of export. In order to analyses the water management in the region and the medical resources, the SWOT analysis of medical service providers what are using balneological treatments was made, a group of other research instruments had chosen. The research analyses of secondary data on historical sources applied, questionnaire (n>100) for evaluation of medical service treatment quality in Latvian health resorts was applied.

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