Seoul Medical Tourism International Travel Mart Ends Successfully
With the COVID-19 incident, the scope of interest has expanded from comprehensive checkups to recovery

Officials from companies are consulting at the 2022 Seoul Medical Tourism International Travel Mart held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul from the 28th to the 29th of last month. [Yonhap]


[Herald Economy = Reporter Choi Jung-ho] The 40-minute counseling schedule is full, 8 to 10 cases a day. Video conference booths were also hard to find empty seats.

The Seoul Medical Tourism International Travel Mart Face-to-Face Counseling Center, which was set up at COEX in Seoul for two days from the 28th to the 29th of last month, was full of counseling from domestic medical tourism-related companies such as hospitals, medical institutions, and hotels, and 110 industry workers from 20 countries around the world, including Japan, China, and Uzbekistan.



Hong Seung-hyun, head of the tourism industry support team in Seoul, said, "In addition to the 885 pre-consultations scheduled, additional consultations are being actively conducted on-site. Demand for medical tourism, which has been suppressed since the COVID-19 incident, will recover in earnest as early as the second half of this year." Analysts say that the number of contracts tallied immediately after the consultation meeting has already exceeded the previous year's level, although it is before the final consultation performance and performance count.




The contents of on-site counseling have also become more diverse than in the past. This means that Korea's medical system, which has managed the COVID-19 situation relatively stably, will become a new trend in domestic medical tourism in the future. It is a cross-section of new medical Hallyu tourism that many of the consultations have been extensively dealt with beyond beauty and plastic surgery in the past, including comprehensive medical checkups, subsequent treatment and recovery. In addition, overseas medical tourism companies that participated in the consultation also responded that the participation of U.S. and European companies as well as nearby Asian countries was more than expected.




Team leader Hong Seung-hyun said, "The number of foreigners who have received medical treatment in Korea has remained at a certain level despite the COVID-19 incident," and stressed, "This shows the world's trust in our medical system and level beyond just one-time medical tourism such as beauty." This means that it is no longer a scene in the drama, but a scene in which a billionaire in the Middle East, believing in Korea's high medical level, undergoes medical checkups and even major surgery, is becoming a reality.



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