Busan is accelerating efforts to develop a high-value-added industry combining medical services and tourism.
The Busan Metropolitan Government announced Wednesday that it has designated 14 medical institutions as "leading cooperative medical institutions for attracting foreign patients" and will work to boost the influx of international patients.
The 14 selected institutions include general hospitals, specialized hospitals, clinics and traditional Korean medicine hospitals, among them Inje University Haeundae Paik Hospital, Sahmyook Busan Hospital, Daedong Hospital and Good Ganган Hospital. These institutions will participate in joint marketing and overseas patient recruitment efforts as key medical tourism hubs representing Busan.
The city plans to upgrade its industry structure from simple treatment-focused visit-based medical tourism to "extended-stay wellness tourism." It will provide intensive support for developing country-specific customized medical and tourism packages, hosting overseas presentations and familiarization tours, running promotions linked to global online travel agencies (OTAs) and producing multilingual content.
In particular, Busan aims to diversify its target markets with a focus on strategic regions including Southeast Asia, Japan, China, Central Asia and Mongolia, while strengthening digital-based promotion to raise the global profile of its medical infrastructure. Expanding extended-stay packages that combine tourism and medical services is considered a key strategy for both increasing per-visitor spending and amplifying the economic ripple effect on the local economy.
The city plans to establish a public-private joint marketing system to achieve economies of scale. "The designation of leading cooperative medical institutions marks an important turning point for Busan's medical tourism to transform into a cooperation-based strategic industry," said Na Yun-bin, director general of the Tourism and MICE Bureau. "We will strengthen the linkage with wellness tourism to grow Busan into a global medical tourism hub."
