Busan Medical Tourism Tops 70,000 International Patients

Busan has moved into the front rank of South Korea’s medical tourism industry, and for the first time the numbers put a non-capital city within reach of the national leader. Seoul Economic Daily reported that Busan drew more than 70,000 international patients in 2025, a first for the city, lifting it to the second-highest medical tourism ranking nationwide.

The precise figure sharpens the story. Seoul Economic Daily reported that 75,879 foreign medical tourists sought care in Busan in 2025, a 151.5 per cent increase on the 30,165 recorded a year earlier. Busan Metropolitan City, which released the data, described it as an all-time high, more than three times the pre-pandemic peak of 19,748 international patients recorded in 2019. Read against that 2019 benchmark, the recovery is not a rebound to trend but a step change in the city’s medical tourism base.

Busan medical tourism climbs the national ranking

The ranking is the headline that will travel. Seoul Economic Daily reported that Busan rose from third place in 2024 to second nationwide in 2025, a first for the city, while holding its lead among non-capital regions for a second consecutive year. In a medical tourism market where the capital usually absorbs the demand, a provincial city reaching second place is the more interesting signal, because it suggests patients are now sorting by hospital and speciality rather than by the pull of the capital alone. Medical tourism is not one product. A patient flying in for reconstructive surgery, orthopaedic work or convalescence weighs a destination differently from one booking cosmetic dermatology. A city that wants to hold second place has to stay credible across several of those specialities at once. Reconstructive and orthopaedic caseloads bring longer stays and heavier aftercare than dental or dermatology work, and the mix a destination attracts shapes the wards it has to staff.

The growth curve behind the ranking is steep. Seoul Economic Daily reported arrivals of 12,912 in 2023, roughly 30,000 in 2024 and more than 70,000 in 2025, a near-sixfold rise across two years. Growth of that speed is rarely organic, and Busan’s own account credits a deliberate recruitment strategy rather than a favourable market.

Where Busan’s international patients come from

The source markets explain both the surge and its main risk. Seoul Economic Daily reported that Taiwan supplied 37.4 per cent of Busan’s international patients, ahead of Japan at 22.2 per cent, China at 15 per cent, Russia at 4 per cent, the United States at 3.7 per cent and Thailand at 2.7 per cent. The report attributed the sharpest gains to East Asia, with Taiwan up 293 per cent on 2024, China up 219 per cent, Japan up 129 per cent and Thailand up 105 per cent.

That spread is broader than it looks and narrower than Busan would like. Six markets is a diversified book by the standards of a young destination, yet a single market supplying 37.4 per cent of arrivals is a concentration a planner should watch. Medical tourism demand is unusually sensitive to currency moves, visa rules and airline capacity on the routes that feed it, and a destination that leans on one neighbour for more than a third of its patients inherits that neighbour’s risks. The diversification is real, and it is not yet finished.

The economics that make medical tourism worth chasing

The reason Busan is investing at all sits in the spending gap. Seoul Economic Daily reported that a medical tourist spends about 8.11 million won a visit, roughly four times the 2.05 million won a general tourist spends. That ratio is the core of the case for medical tourism as a high-value, stay-based industry, because the patient stays longer, spends on treatment and convalescence rather than souvenirs, and often brings companions who spend as ordinary tourists do.

The public policy has been built around that arithmetic. Seoul Economic Daily reported a programme that designates high-performing medical institutions to recruit international patients, runs joint promotion, upgrades medical reception infrastructure, targets country-specific marketing, hosts familiarisation tours for overseas buyers and develops region-specific projects. This is the machinery of a destination that has decided medical tourism is worth running as public policy rather than leaving to individual hospitals.

Busan’s plan to reach 100,000 by 2030

Busan intends to keep the curve moving. Seoul Economic Daily reported that Busan Metropolitan City will publish a “Basic Plan for Revitalizing Medical Tourism” this year, backed by 2.4 billion won and built on three pillars the city labels flow, identity and trust: strengthening the medical tourism industry, integrating treatment with tourism, and branding Busan internationally.

The target is explicit. Acting Busan Mayor Kim Kyung-deok said the city expects to reach “100,000 medical tourists to Busan by 2030 ahead of schedule”, framing the goal as a convergence model that combines treatment with tourism to lift the local economy. On the current curve the number looks reachable, and the harder task is the one the three pillars only gesture at.

The pillar that matters most is trust, and it is the slowest to build. Volume and marketing can be bought, while clinical reputation is earned case by case, and it is what keeps a destination on the map once the currency advantage narrows. Busan’s five-year run has shown it can attract international patients in quantity. The next test of Busan’s medical tourism is whether the outcomes, the aftercare and the accredited standards behind those numbers hold as the volume climbs toward 100,000, because a destination is remembered for its worst results rather than its headline count.