Medical tourists flock to Korea
South Korea has seen a 20-fold increase in the number of medical tourists in the last years – from 760 in 2005 to 16,000 last year.
Sophisticated marketing, lower prices and even Korean dramas have been behind the soaring numbers, according to the Council for Korea Medicine Overseas Promotion, Joong Ang Daily reported.
“South Korean hospitals offer cutting-edge medical techniques, comparable to those of developed countries, but the cost is lower,” Chang Gyeong-won, secretary general of the council, was quoted saying.
The council, which was created last year to promote medical tourism, aims to attract 100,000 foreign patients by 2012.
Most of them come from China and Japan, seeking treatments from plastic surgery to health checkups, the report said.
According to the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences Council, medical costs in South Korea are a third of that in the United States.
“Due to global marketing efforts and the Korean wave, we are receiving calls from the Philippines, Malaysia and India,” Lee Gyeong-soo, president of Yidemei Plastic Surgery Clinic in Seoul, was quoted Two years ago, Kang Won-gyeong, chairman of the clinic, hired Chinese-speaking staff and even changed the clinic’s name from the Kang Won-gyeong Plastic Surgery Clinic to Yidemei, which means acquiring beauty through medical treatment in Chinese.
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