The number of foreign patients visiting Korean dermatology and plastic surgery clinics is rapidly increasing. Notably, the estimated medical tourism expenditure by foreign patients and their companions in Korea last year reached a total of 7.5039 trillion won.
According to a report on foreign patient attraction in 2024 released by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute on July 28, the number of actual foreign patients who visited Korea last year was recorded at 1,170,467. This marks the first time the annual number of actual patients has exceeded 1 million since the foreign patient attraction business began in earnest. This figure represents a 1.9-fold increase compared to the previous year, with the cumulative number of foreign patients reaching 5.05 million.
Patients from 202 countries visited Korea, with Japan leading at 441,000, followed by China (260,000), the United States (100,000), Taiwan (83,000), and Thailand (38,000). Notably, Japan and Taiwan showed explosive growth rates of 135% and 550% respectively compared to the previous year.
Among medical fields, dermatology ranked first, accounting for 56.6% of all foreign patients with 705,000 visitors. This represents a 194.9% increase from the previous year. Plastic surgery (11.4%) and integrated internal medicine (10.0%) followed. Traditional Korean medicine also grew by 84.6%, indicating a structural change with an increase in both short-term cosmetic procedures and mid to long-term treatment patients.
Regionally, Seoul attracted about 1 million patients, 85.4% of the total, highlighting the concentration in the capital area. While Busan (30,000) and Jeju (20,000) had fewer patients, they recorded growth rates of 133.6% and 221.0% respectively, showing potential as regional medical tourism destinations.
The growth rate of foreign patients is outpacing the recovery of inbound tourists. While 16.37 million foreign tourists visited Korea last year, reaching 90% of the pre-COVID 2019 levels, the number of foreign patients increased 2-3 fold. K-medical, combining K-beauty and K-healthcare, has emerged as a key tourism content.
Han Dong-woo, head of the International Medical Division at the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, emphasized, “The ‘era of 1 million foreign patients’ has officially begun, surpassing simple recovery. Going forward, service quality enhancement based on medical reliability and convenience, along with the growth of related industries, will be the key to sustainability.”
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