240,000 Foreign Patients Visited Korea Last Year... Recovery to 50% of Pre-COVID Levels

Last year, the number of foreign patients visiting South Korea recovered to about half the level before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on the 24th that 248,110 foreign patients visited the country last year. This represents a 70.1% increase compared to 146,000 in 2021. Compared to 2019, when the highest number of foreign patients was attracted before COVID-19 (497,000), it has recovered to about 50%. Since starting to attract foreign patients in 2009, the cumulative number of patients who have visited Korea has reached 3.27 million.

Trends of foreign tourists and foreign patients in Korea. [Data provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare]

Last year, foreign patients from 192 countries visited South Korea. By nationality, the United States (44,095 patients, 17.8%) and China (43,923 patients, 17.7%) were the most numerous. They were followed by Japan (21,757 patients) and Thailand (20,408 patients). Notably, Japan showed the highest rank increase among the top 10 countries with many visitors (from 8th to 3rd), due to an increase in patients visiting plastic surgery and dermatology departments.

By medical department, integrated internal medicine had the highest number of patients at 65,424 (22.3%), followed by plastic surgery (15.8%), dermatology (12.3%), and health screening centers (6.6%). Compared to 2021, the number of foreign patients increased in all departments, with dermatology (201.0%), plastic surgery (177.7%), and otorhinolaryngology (76.3%) showing particularly high growth rates.

By type of medical institution, 90,168 patients (36.3%) visited clinics, followed by general hospitals (28.8%) and tertiary hospitals (18.9%). By region, Seoul attracted 146,310 foreign patients, accounting for 59.0% of the total, overwhelmingly more than other local governments.

Jung Eun-young, Director of the Health Industry Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "The foreign patient attraction project has high growth potential due to the increasing global demand for medical services, and it is an important project that enhances added value and national prestige by linking with other industries such as tourism. We will continue efforts to leap forward as a central country for medical tourism in Asia based on the high international competitiveness of Korean medical services."

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