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Busan Surpasses 75,000 Foreign Medical Tourists Last Year… Achieves Record-High Performance, Ranking 2nd Nationwide

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Busan Metropolitan City announced that the number of foreign medical tourists who visited Busan in 2025 reached 75,879, marking the highest performance since the city began actively promoting medical tourism in 2009.

This represents a 151.5% increase compared to 30,165 in 2024 and a 284.2% increase compared to 19,748 in 2019, which was the highest figure prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With this achievement, the city is expected to reach its goal of attracting 100,000 medical tourists by 2030 earlier than planned.

Busan’s national ranking in attracting foreign medical tourists rose from 3rd in 2024 to 2nd in 2025, marking the first time it has achieved 2nd place nationwide while maintaining 1st place among non-capital regions for two consecutive years. By region, the number of visiting medical tourists was highest in Seoul, followed by Busan, Gyeonggi, Jeju, Incheon, and Daegu.

Although Busan’s medical tourism performance declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has steadily recovered through continuous policy support and public-private cooperation. The number of foreign medical tourists increased from 12,912 in 2023 to 30,165 in 2024 and surpassed 75,879 in 2025.

According to the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, the largest share of medical tourists visiting Busan in 2025 came from Taiwan (37.4%), followed by Japan (22.2%), China (15%), Russia (4%), the United States (3.7%), and Thailand (2.7%). Taiwan overtook Japan, which had held the top position for two consecutive years, to become the leading source of visitors.

Notably, the number of Taiwanese medical tourists surged by 293% year-on-year, rising from 7,219 to 28,373. Significant growth was also observed among visitors from China (219%), Japan (129%), Thailand (105%), and the United States (77.5%).

This increase is largely attributed to the rise in dermatology-related medical tourism from Japan, Taiwan, and China.

The most visited medical specialty among foreign medical tourists in Busan was dermatology (67%), followed by plastic surgery (6.5%), internal medicine comprehensive examination centers (5.3%), dentistry (3.9%), and orthopedics (1.7%).

Dermatology saw the most significant growth, increasing by 301% from 13,158 in 2024 to 52,798 in 2025. This was followed by internal medicine comprehensive care (43.5%), ophthalmology (26.2%), orthopedics (20.5%), and traditional Korean medicine integrated care (17.8%), indicating strong growth centered on dermatology.

These results suggest that Busan has moved beyond simple cosmetic procedures to gain global trust in its advanced medical technology, leading to an increase in treatment-oriented foreign patients.

The growth is attributed to various initiatives carried out by Busan Metropolitan City and the Busan Economic Promotion Agency, including selecting top-performing medical institutions for attracting foreign patients and conducting joint promotions, improving international medical service readiness, providing targeted marketing support for Taiwan and other countries, hosting medical tourism briefings and familiarization tours for China, Russia, and Mongolia, and supporting the activation of region-specific specialized zones.

In particular, the number of Taiwanese tourists visiting Busan reached 687,832 in 2025, a 37.4% increase from the previous year. Many visitors favored easily accessible dermatology clinics for simple skin procedures, which has become a common tourism pattern.

Meanwhile, Busan Metropolitan City plans to implement the “2026 Basic Plan for Revitalizing Medical Tourism” this year, investing a total of KRW 2.4 billion. The plan focuses on three key strategies centered on FIT-based personalized services: strengthening a virtuous cycle ecosystem (Flow), developing differentiated convergence-based destinations (Identity), and enhancing branding (Trust).

Kim Kyung-duk, Acting Mayor of Busan Metropolitan City, stated, “Busan’s tourism industry is achieving record-breaking results, and medical tourism in particular has a significantly greater economic impact than general tourism due to longer stays and higher per capita spending.” He added, “We will continue to build a high value-added, convergence-based medical tourism model that combines treatment and tourism to contribute meaningfully to the revitalization of the local economy.”