This is the Health Tourism News roundup for 27 August to 16 September 2026, a three-week period.
Korea’s growth moved to spending per patient
South Korea treated 2.01 million foreign patients in 2025, up 71.9 per cent, in the Korea Health Industry Development Institute’s annual report published at the end of August.
Across the top 14 countries by card spending, the number of cards used for medical services rose 1.0 per cent in the first half of 2026 while average spending per card rose 30.1 per cent, on the institute’s analysis of overseas-issued card data. Medical sector spending reached 1.4203 trillion won for the half, up 38.6 per cent.
The monthly series turned in August, to 202.8 billion won, down 4.8 per cent on July and up 32.0 per cent on the year, in a DB Securities report. Seoul opened a certification scheme for lodging aimed at recovering patients, grading properties on proximity to medical centres, barrier-free access and emergency response. The Korea Tourism Organization pitched screening packages to Mongolian mining employers from 4 to 6 September, and Busan’s consultations in Almaty on 8 and 9 September produced 107 meetings.
India set a target twenty times its current intake
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told two pharmaceutical industry events in New Delhi on 7 September that India should aim for 10 million international patients a year. He put the number who had used India’s medical value travel services over the previous seven years at 3.5 million, an average of about 500,000 a year.
Medical visa issuance has fallen in each of the last two years, from 643,541 in 2023 to 624,761 in 2024 and 508,330 in 2025, on figures given to Parliament by Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel. The chair of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s medical value travel committee reported a 40 to 60 per cent fall in arrivals from conflict-affected regions, with airfares up 15 to 25 per cent.
India spends 1.9 per cent of GDP on public health against its own 2.5 per cent target set in 2017, and has 1.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people against a World Health Organization recommendation of 3.5, on figures in the 2023-24 Economic Survey. Goyal’s five-point plan covers caregiver certification, published treatment prices, faster reimbursement, interpreters, and treatment only at accredited hospitals.
Three governments moved to export dentistry
Tirana’s metropolitan area holds close to 400 dental clinics for a population of around 600,000, with signage and websites in English and Italian, in BBC reporting from the city. Implants run at about €600 a tooth, comparable with Turkey and roughly a quarter of the price in the United Kingdom, France or Germany.
Moldova’s prime minister, Vasile Tofan, instructed his health minister on 26 August to bring deregulation measures for private dental clinics to cabinet. He criticised a 35-page licensing manual that applies hospital-grade requirements to two-chair practices, among them lifts, backup generators and three days of refrigerated food samples. Dental consultations there rose from 1.3 million in 2022 to 1.5 million in 2025 while total medical consultations fell by about 3 million, on National Bureau of Statistics figures.
Vietnam’s health ministry lists Australians among the top foreign nationalities treated in the country, where clinics recruit them through social media advertising, and wants to double international patient numbers within four years. Australia does not track how many of its citizens travel abroad for treatment. A prosthodontist speaking for the Australian Dental Association said he wished it collected data on adverse outcomes, as the United Kingdom does. The UK Foreign Office records seven British nationals dying in Turkey in 2025 following medical procedures.
China’s hospitals logged 1.28 million foreign patient visits
Major Chinese hospitals recorded about 1.28 million visits by international patients in 2025, up 73.6 per cent on three years earlier, on National Health Commission figures, with visits from Europe and the United States doubling over the same period.
In June the National Medical Products Administration approved the first CAR-T cell therapy cleared anywhere for solid tumours, a treatment that reprogrammes a patient’s own immune cells. A 59-year-old New Zealander, told at home that his cancer treatment had failed, became the first foreign patient to complete the course, paying 990,000 yuan, about 138,000 US dollars, and flying home on 16 August, in reporting by Caijing magazine.
The same regulator approved 76 innovative drugs and 76 innovative medical devices in 2025, both records. A county hospital in Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna prefecture received more than 13,000 international patients in 2025 against about 500 in 2013, 97.5 per cent of them Lao nationals.
African states costed the outflow before building for the inflow
A state orthopaedic institute in Dar es Salaam treated 211,359 patients in financial year 2025/26, of whom 270 came from ten other African countries. It put the saving from treating 2,282 specialist cases domestically at 121.99 billion Tanzanian shillings, and said referrals abroad had fallen 98 per cent for orthopaedic and 97 per cent for brain cases.
Nigeria’s sovereign wealth fund said its healthcare programme has retained more than 200 million US dollars in foreign exchange. Its Lagos cancer centre has delivered more than 25,000 radiotherapy sessions and 10,000 chemotherapy treatments to about 15,000 patients since opening in May 2019.
Ghana’s tourism authority broke ground on 9 September for a medical city at Ada in Greater Accra, to hold about 30 hospitals. Kenya was absent from a June 2026 list of the top 50 destinations that placed South Africa 32nd and included Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, in a column in The Star that blamed executive inaction.
Arab states began drafting a common licensing framework
An Arab League working group met in Cairo on 8 September to start drafting a regional framework for accrediting and licensing health tourism facilities, chaired by Algeria. It is being prepared with Bahrain under Resolution 362 of the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism, and covers hospitals, specialised centres and health resorts.
Thai authorities said on 9 September they were investigating whether a Bangkok clinic held a valid licence, after a London coroner ruled that the March death of a 43-year-old British businessman was caused by a hyaluronic acid injection given hours earlier. Nigerian police arrested four people in August, two of them nephrologists, over an alleged organ trafficking syndicate around Abuja and Nasarawa State.
Lawyers and doctors in Vietnam called for cross-border cosmetic surgery brokerage to be regulated separately from medical advertising, after a revised Advertising Law in force from 1 January 2026 restricted advertised medical services to those licensed there.
By the Numbers
RM3.35 billion in Malaysian medical tourism revenue in 2025, up 23.2 per cent on 2024, on Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council figures.
527,176 foreign patients treated by Penang’s 16 participating private hospitals in 2025, against 418,608 in 2024, on state government figures.
42.7 billion US dollars, Thailand’s wellness economy in 2024, 0.63 per cent of the global total and 24th of 145 economies assessed, on Global Wellness Institute figures.
2 to 3 billion US dollars spent each year by Vietnamese nationals on treatment abroad, exceeding total inbound medical tourism revenue, on Ministry of Health estimates for 2026-2030.
21,500 Central Asian patients treated in Korea in 2025, up 12.5 per cent on 2024, on Busan Economic Promotion Agency figures.
What to Watch
Thailand hosts the Global Wellness Summit from 10 to 13 November 2026.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Health draft scheme for 2026 to 2030, targeting 750,000 international patients, is circulating for comment.
The Arab League working group that met in Cairo on 8 September is preparing the licensing framework ordered under Resolution 362.
Thailand’s health ministry has not published its finding on whether the Bangkok clinic linked to the March death was licensed.