Gangnam attracts over 185,000 medical tourists, driven by K-beauty boom

The Gangnam District Office said Thursday that a total of 185,559 foreign patients visited Gangnam last year, up 209.8 percent compared to the year before.

A foreigner visits a doctor with an interpreter in a photo provided by the Gangnam District Office on Thursday. [GANGNAM DISTRICT OFFICE]

A record number of medical tourists visited Gangnam District in southern Seoul last year.

The Gangnam District Office said Thursday that a total of 185,559 foreign patients visited Gangnam last year, up 209.8 percent compared to the year before. The number of foreign patients in Gangnam accounted for nearly 31 percent of all overseas patients in Korea, as well as 39 percent of tourists who visited Seoul for medical services.

By country, the highest percentage of medical tourists came from Japan at 38.5 percent, followed by China at 16.9 percent and the United States at 12 percent. Nearly half of the overseas patients came to Gangnam for dermatology treatments, while the rest sought plastic surgery, internal medicine and health checkups.

In particular, the number of overseas patients from Japan surged by 748.8 percent compared to the previous year, and those from China increased by 254.9 percent. The district office attributed the surge to the high interest in K-beauty among tourists in their 20s and 30s.

Last year, the country also saw the highest number of overseas patients overall, receiving 605,768 medical tourists, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare in April.

Although the number of medical tourists had been gradually increasing in Gangnam, it plunged due to the Covid-19 pandemic, dropping from 131,808 in 2019 to 23,734 in 2021. However, the number rebounded in 2022, with more than a 150 percent increase, thanks to the district’s efforts to host events such as an online fair for medical tourism in 2020 and the Seoul Medi Tour Brand Festa in 2021.

Since last year, the Gangnam District Office has been offering free airport pick-up and interpretation services for tourists coming to Seoul for medical services.

“I am delighted to attract the highest number of medical tourists [to the district] by far,” said Cho Sung-myung, the head of Gangnam District.

“We will develop Gangnam District into a globally renowned area for medical tourism by implementing marketing strategies centered on the Gangnam Medical Tour Center and taking into account the different characteristics and demands of patients from various countries.”

The district operates the Gangnam Medical Tour Center, which provides consultations on the price and procedures of medical services to overseas patients in multiple languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese and Russian, before they visit the hospital.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]