Foreign tourists spend over W200b a month on medical services in Korea as K-beauty demand surges

Foreign tourists visiting South Korea have spent more than 200 billion won ($145 million) on medical services every month for five consecutive months, according to new data.

The Korea Tourism Organization's Korea Tourism Data Lab said Sunday that foreign visitors' medical spending reached 213.08 billion won in July, up 66.5 percent from a year earlier.

The figure is an estimate of total outlays by inbound visitors in the medical sector, calculated using Shinhan Card transaction data.

Monthly medical spending crossed the 200 billion won threshold in March at 204.4 billion won, then set an all-time high in April at 249.86 billion won before breaking that record again in May at 251.16 billion won. It remained above 200 billion won in June at 250.83 billion won and in July at 213.08 billion won, marking five straight months above that level.

By country of origin, China led all visitors in July spending at about 57.7 billion won, followed by the United States (about 44 billion won), Japan (about 28.5 billion won), Taiwan (about 25.3 billion won) and Singapore (about 6.4 billion won).

By medical specialty, dermatology accounted for the largest share at 54.9 percent, followed by plastic surgery (19.3 percent), pharmacies (12.7 percent), university and general hospitals (6.5 percent), dental clinics (4.0 percent) and ophthalmology (1.5 percent).

Pharmacies in particular have seen a sharp rise in share — they accounted for less than 5 percent as recently as March last year but climbed to 10 percent in January and have held double-digit share every month since.

"The growing perception that Korea's medical technology is world-class, combined with multilingual support systems at major hospitals and improved treatment convenience, has driven this trend," said Yun Ji-hwan, a tourism professor at Kyung Hee University.

Most medical spending, however, remains heavily concentrated in Seoul, which accounted for 86.8 percent of the total in July. Busan followed at 6.4 percent, Gyeonggi Province at 3.7 percent and Jeju at 1.6 percent.

Yun said redistributing medical facilities from Seoul to the regions is in effect impossible. "Rather than artificially placing Seoul-caliber hospitals in the provinces, a more realistic approach to easing regional concentration would be to strengthen medical tourism centered on surgery and procedures in Seoul, while developing healthcare tourism focused on wellness management and traditional Korean medicine in other regions," he said.