Investigating Artificial Intelligence Strategies for Health Tourism Destination Branding: A Case Study of Yazd Province

Given the growing competition in the health tourism industry, it is essential to utilize new technologies such as artificial intelligence as a transformative tool to create differentiation and attract customers. Yazd province, as one of the leading destinations in Iran, needs artificial intelligence-based strategies to strengthen its position in this field. This research was conducted with the aim of identifying and ranking artificial intelligence strategies for branding the health tourism destination of Yazd province. The research method was descriptive-survey and designed with a mixed research approach in four stages: extracting a conceptual framework from the existing literature, interviewing 51 professors and experts in the health tourism industry, analyzing data using FCMapper and UCINET6 software to draw fuzzy cognitive maps, and simulating scenarios to examine the interaction of strategies. The findings showed that smart customer relationship management, smart market research, and continuous research and development were identified as the most key strategies. These factors not only directly affect the customer experience, but also create a cycle of continuous improvement by strengthening components such as market forecasting and digital content optimization. Scenario simulations also emphasized that the elimination of any of these key strategies (such as disabling intelligent customer relationship management) leads to a decrease in the performance of other factors such as tourist data analysis and automation services.