An Update on South Korea’s Medical Tourism Industry in 2014

Written by Seoul TouchUp. Posted in Korean Plastic Surgery

The Financial Times has gone into great detail on South Korea’s ambitions in medical tourism. If you’re curious but lack the time to read its entirety, no fear! In this post, we will summarize it all!

• South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, causing their general population to age more rapidly than any other advanced nation.
• It is fast becoming an Image conscious culture, where how one presents himself or herself even on a CV can make or break a successful application.
• There is a huge demand for and continual improvement on the country’s medical tourism, pharmaceutical and medical equipment industries.
• Indeed, if you’ve already guessed – the popularity of Korean cosmetic services owes its success to South Korean pop music and television shows.
• To add on, their ambitions go beyond cosmetic surgery, to include special international health centres; hospitals that promise patients from developed nations with treatments that rival the world’s richest countries, at a significantly lower price.
• The Korea Tourism Organisation foresees that the yearly number of medical tourists will increase from 399,000 (last year’s figure), to 998,000 by 2020.
• The government has tried to attract foreign hospital operators to create establishments in parts of the nations’ special economic zones. Take Jeju island for example; there was one such proposal back this year – a hospital that was to be build on Jeju island. However, the ministry has blocked this Chinese firm’s plans for the hospital as these people were not qualified to carry out said plan.
• Apparently, Korea is behind other leading countries in medical technology – compared to say Germany. But this is a work in progress and according to Jin Ki-nam, a public health professor, he reckons that the sector can benefit from the state’s support – and things can definitely change for the better here.