As the government is planning to promote policies to boost local demand by attracting foreign tourists, it will also support medical tourism.

Such a plan was included in the “Local Demand Boost Measures” announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance at an emergency meeting on Wednesday.

The plan is to promote customized measures to boost domestic demand centered on vulnerable sectors, including the medical sector.

Notably, to boost medical demand, the government will prepare customized medical tourism packages linking to each province’s medical specialty with certain countries, while cutting airport passenger service charges.

The project will be centered on six Wellness and Medical Tourism Convergence Clusters – including Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province, Busan, Incheon, Gangwon Province, North Jeolla Province, and North Chungcheong Province.

For example, in the Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province cluster, government officials plan to provide plastic surgery and dermatology treatments to patients from Thailand and Vietnam. The government will slash airport service fees at Daegu Airport and establish new plane routes to and from Thailand and Vietnam.

Government officials will also set up a one-stop channel that helps medical tourists book a hospital, transportation, accommodation, and tourism simultaneously.

To this end, information accessibility will be enhanced with a one-click connection between the VISIT KOREA website, which provides information on transportation, accommodation, and tourism, and the Medical Korea website, which focuses on medical care.

The number of medical institutions with the right to apply for an e-visa for patients will also be increased from the current 27 to more than 50.

The government will also look into providing non-face-to-face treatment for foreign patients, with plans to commission research into contactless treatment for foreigners in April and design a pilot project based on the results.

Programs to attract foreign patients will also be expanded in fields unique to Korea, such as oriental medicine.

The specialized oriental medicine project, which targets patients from Japan and China and provides sector-specific surveys and consulting to oriental medicine clinics attracting foreign patients, will be expanded from 70 clinics in 2022 to 90 clinics.

In addition, it will strengthen medical tourism promotion by operating training programs for overseas medical personnel through the medical tourism exhibitions planned for April and September.