Cluster’s theoretical dimensions and its application to medical tourism

Porter has two versions of the cluster concept. In 1990, the first version says that, in terms of the economy of a country, “industry” is the basic element. The key relationships are between industries, whether horizontal or vertical. In the second version, from 2000, he argues that the level of a local area or region firms and interrelations between them are the key element. In this second version, geographic location and socio-cultural factors are exogenous to his generation and development. Consequently, territorial specificities and within the socio-cultural territory not determine clusters of companies or the generation of competitive advantages. The application of this methodology to tourism is a recent task, even investigating this approach applied to the service sector, especially in the medical tourism, is a new area and, therefore, underdeveloped. Somehow, this type of groups has been applied the same principles to industrial clusters. A fundamental difference between any industrial cluster and tourism cluster lies in the fact that the former is the product that moves beyond the place of production to the place of consumption; as in any tourist cluster, the opposite happens, the demand side (tourists) is what should move to the place of production of the tourism product. This essential difference directly affects the way to plan and manage a cluster of medical tourism.

Keywords:
cluster; medical tourism; clustering; competitive advantage