Daegu City Enters Era of 30,000 Medical Tourists... Chinese Visitors Double Compared to Previous Year

Daegu Medical Tourists Last Year Reach 31,183, First Non-Capital Region to Do So
Up 75.7% from Previous Year, 3rd Nationwide... Exceeds Pre-THAAD China Crisis Levels

The promotional presentation and medical consultation event for Yakutsk, Russia, held by Daegu City.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongwook Park] Last year, the number of foreign medical tourists visiting Daegu reached 31,183, marking the first time a non-capital region surpassed 30,000 visitors. This represents an explosive growth of 75.7% compared to 17,745 in 2018.

According to the '2019 Foreign Patient Attraction Performance Statistics' released by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute on the 6th, the total number of foreign patients who used Korean medical services last year was 497,464, a 31.3% increase from the previous year. Among them, Daegu accounted for 6.3% of the total foreign patients, ranking third after Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.

By department, dermatology and plastic surgery showed high growth rates of 136% and 115%, respectively. By nationality, China held the largest share, while the increase in medical tourists from Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, who are the main customers in dermatology and plastic surgery, was remarkable.

In particular, the annual figures for China, which accounts for 21% of all medical tourists, have been dynamic. The number dropped sharply from 5,300 in 2016 to 2,489 in 2017, then increased significantly to 3,438 in 2018 and 6,474 in 2019.

Although the THAAD incident in 2017 caused a 53% decrease compared to the previous year, continuous overseas buyer discovery, establishment of cooperative systems, and aggressive marketing efforts not only surpassed the pre-THAAD performance but also resulted in the largest increase ever recorded. In line with the easing of THAAD retaliation, strategies focusing on key cities with direct flight routes such as Qingdao and Hangzhou, targeting high-end medical demands and increased interest in beauty among women, appear to have been effective in concentrating on the needs of medical tourism customers.

Through country-specific customized promotional marketing to diversify the medical tourism market, foreign patients from major target countries such as Vietnam and Thailand (skin beauty), Japan (Korean medicine), Russia (severe/internal medicine), and Mongolia (health checkups) also increased at high rates. Compared to 2018, the growth rates were Mongolia 354%, Vietnam 243%, Thailand 100%, Japan 92%, and China 88%.

Thus, Daegu became the first non-capital local government in the country to attract 20,000 medical tourists in 2016, followed by consecutive years of attracting 20,000 visitors, and finally entering the era of 30,000 visitors, demonstrating the true strength of 'MediCity Daegu.' Daegu proudly claims to have laid the groundwork for advancing to an era of 50,000 foreign medical tourists.

Since 2009, Daegu has been leading Korea's medical tourism industry through pioneering and proactive policy operations that serve as a role model for local governments nationwide, including operating the only specialized institutions such as the MediCity Daegu Council and Daegu Medical Tourism Promotion Agency, and opening and managing 25 overseas promotion centers in 10 countries.

Currently, Daegu has established abundant medical infrastructure, including five tertiary general hospitals, eleven general hospitals, over 3,700 clinics and hospitals, more than 35,000 hospital beds, and approximately 21,000 healthcare personnel. It also possesses excellent medical technologies in areas such as hair transplantation, plastic surgery, dermatology, Korean medicine, dentistry, and health checkups, including the second successful arm transplant case in Asia.

Baek Dong-hyun, Director of Innovation Growth at Daegu City, emphasized, "Despite Daegu's accessibility limitations as an inland city, it was able to attract the third-largest number of foreign medical tourists nationwide by actively utilizing its abundant medical service infrastructure. We will continue to do our best to help Daegu grow further as a representative medical city of Korea through differentiated growth strategies such as establishing medical tourism special zones."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.