The K-beauty craze has also brought on K-medical...Foreign patients doubled last year ↑
Apr 02, 2025
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Last year, the number of foreign patients visiting Korea nearly doubled from the previous year to 1.17 million, the highest ever, followed by dermatological treatment, followed by plastic surgery.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare's announcement on the 2nd '2024 Status of Attracting Foreign Patients', 1,174,667 foreign patients from 202 countries visited Korea last year. The figure is up 93.2% from 605,768 in 2023. The economic effect of this is expected to be about 8 trillion won in medical expenditures and about 14 trillion won in production inducement.
Since 2009, when the project to attract foreign patients began in earnest, the number of foreign patients who have visited Korea for 16 years has accumulated 5.05 million.
By nationality, Japanese patients accounted for the largest number of patients with 441,112 (37.7%), followed by China with 266,641 (22.3%), the U.S. with 101,733 (8.7%), Taiwan with 83,456 (7.1%), and Thailand with 38,152 (3.3%). In particular, the number of Taiwanese patients increased by 550.6% and Japan and China increased by 135.0% and 132.4%, respectively, compared to the previous year, and the number of patients visiting dermatologists seems to have increased.
By treatment department (including redundancy), dermatology was the most common with 705,044 people (56.6%). It was followed by 141,845 plastic surgery clinics (11.4%), 124,085 integrated internal medicine (10.0%), 55,762 check-up centers (4.5%), and 33,893 integrated oriental medicine (2.7%). Compared to 2023, dermatology (194.9%), oriental medicine integration (84.6%), and internal medicine integration (36.4%) showed the highest growth rate.
Foreigners' high affinity for Korean cosmetics, price competitiveness of Korean skin treatments, and increased Hallyu fan tourism were analyzed as the reasons for the success of dermatology. According to the '2024 Korea Medical Service Overseas Awareness Survey', the Korean cosmetics industry ranked first among 19 competing countries in the bio-health industry.
By type of medical institution, the proportion of clinic level was 82.0%, followed by general hospitals (6.0%) and advanced general hospitals (5.1%).
The number of patients using clinics increased the most to 138.4% compared to the previous year, while oriental clinics (113.2%) and dental hospitals (24.7%) also showed high growth rates. On the other hand, general hospitals and advanced general hospitals decreased by 14.4% and 7.6%, respectively, compared to the previous year
By region, 999,642 (85.4%) foreign patients visited Seoul, approaching 1 million, followed by Gyeonggi (4.4%), Busan (2.6%), Jeju (1.9%), and Incheon (1.8%).
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
