According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the number of medical tourists visiting Seoul in 2024 approached 1 million. In total, 1,170,467 people from 202 countries visited South Korea for medical services last year, with 999,642 of them coming to the capital, the city said, citing data from the central government.

The number of medical tourists to Seoul more than doubled from 473,340 in 2023 and increased more than threefold compared to the prepandemic figure of 320,284 in 2019.

Last year, foreign nationals paid a total of 1.4 trillion won ($1 billion) in medical expenses using credit cards issued outside Korea, with 85.7 percent (1.2 trillion won) spent in Seoul.

By medical service, plastic surgery was the most popular, attracting around 666,000 foreign patients, followed by dermatology with 130,000 and physician treatments with 81,000.


don@heraldcorp.com