Vietnam has set a target to lift its medical tourism market to nearly $4 billion by 2033, close to quadrupling its current value, VietnamNet reported. The plan comes from the Ministry of Health. It ties good hospital care to hospitality, in a bid to draw in international patients and to slow the flow of Vietnamese citizens who travel abroad for treatment. The ambition is large. Vietnam is now pitching itself as a medical tourism destination rather than a source of outbound patients.
Vietnam’s medical tourism target for 2033
The Ministry of Health has set both the headline figure and the timetable behind it, VietnamNet reported. Vietnam’s medical tourism market was worth about $700 million in 2024, and the forecast is for nearly $4 billion by 2033, an average annual growth rate of roughly 18 per cent. The project is phased. It starts with five localities, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Quang Ninh and Khanh Hoa, which are meant to lead by 2030 on integrated models that blend hospital services with hotels, resorts and specialised travel. The numbers are a statement of intent more than a guarantee, and an 18 per cent annual rate is only ever as real as the approval and the clinical results under it.
The competitive case and its limits
Vietnam’s pitch rests on cost, workforce and clinical range, VietnamNet reported. Procedures cost less than in many Western countries and in established regional hubs, the medical workforce is skilled, and the country already handles complex interventions in cardiology, organ transplantation, in vitro fertilisation and advanced dentistry. Price is the load-bearing driver here. But price is not the whole story. For most foreign patients weighing Vietnam, the decision turns on treatment that is cheaper than at home and quick enough to be worth the trip, which places the offer at the clinical, medical end of the health tourism spectrum. The harder question is trust. Medical tourism is judged on outcomes and on patient safety, and a new destination has to prove both before price alone will move patients across a border.
Accreditation and the strategy to 2030
To close that trust gap, the Ministry of Health is drafting a strategy for high-quality health services from 2025 to 2030, VietnamNet reported. It carries a dual aim, to attract affluent international patients and to cut the number of Vietnamese citizens who travel abroad for care. A central plank is accreditation. The strategy targets at least 15 hospitals reaching international standards by 2030, with five of them public ones. It widens the service mix from advanced treatment to traditional medicine paired with wellness retreats and packaged care. Accreditation is the mechanism that turns ambition into referrals. Without it, the $4 billion figure stays a projection, because foreign patients and their insurers read accreditation as the first proxy for safety.
Hanoi’s build-out and a private villa model
Hanoi is one of the five core localities, and 2026 is set as a turning point for its hospital system, VietnamNet reported. The agenda runs to facility upgrades, new medical equipment, workforce training and the use of artificial intelligence for earlier diagnosis, with the expansion of oncology, cardiology and paediatric hospitals and new rehabilitation and therapy centres. The private sector is moving in parallel. VietnamNet reported that one private hospital has pioneered a villa-style model, where foreign patients receive care in private villas that combine round-the-clock medical oversight with resort amenities. That model is a hybrid, an elective procedure bundled with a recovery stay, and it sits on the blurred line between medical and wellness tourism. Wellness is borrowed authority for a health publication, so the resort language is best read as marketing until the clinical outcomes are measured.
Traditional medicine and a wider service mix
Traditional medicine is being pushed as a draw for foreign visitors, VietnamNet reported. Do Tan Khoa, Director of the Traditional Medicine Hospital of Ho Chi Minh City, said “traditional medicine is being identified as a key pillar”, pointing to holistic wellness, rehabilitation and quality-of-life services that are drawing growing interest from foreign patients. VietnamNet reported that travel firms have widened their products too, moving from basic dental care packages in Ho Chi Minh City to tours that fold in specialised dental treatment, cosmetic procedures and wellness retreats. The mix is telling. Dental and cosmetic work are among the most price-elastic segments of medical travel, and they are the natural entry points for a destination still building its name in higher-acuity care.
Where Vietnam’s patients come from
Demand is already broadening beyond the region, VietnamNet reported. Bui Thi Ngoc Hieu, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Tourism, said that between 30 and 40 per cent of patients seeking treatment in the city come from other provinces or overseas. Much of the overseas share has traditionally come from Cambodia and Laos, but VietnamNet reported a rise from more distant markets, including the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan, alongside a steady flow from overseas Vietnamese families. That spread matters. A destination that leans on two nearby source markets carries concentration risk, and pulling patients from four continents is what turns a regional clinic trade into a medical tourism sector. Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan framed the country’s competitive costs, improving medical expertise and tradition of traditional medicine as a new avenue for both tourism and healthcare.
The domestic goal behind the export push
The second half of the strategy is quieter but just as important, VietnamNet reported. Alongside courting foreign patients, the Ministry of Health wants to keep more Vietnamese patients at home, reversing an outbound flow that sends money and cases abroad. The two goals reinforce each other. The accreditation, the equipment and the specialist depth that persuade an international patient to fly in are the same things that persuade a Vietnamese patient to stay. Build the machinery first, and the destination brand follows, rather than the other way round. On VietnamNet’s account, that is the order Vietnam is now trying to follow, and the nearly $4 billion target rides on whether the accreditation and the outcomes arrive on schedule.
