Foreign patients are visiting South Korea’s dermatology clinics in unprecedented numbers, making skin treatments the leading driver of medical tourism and underscoring the global reach of the country’s beauty and wellness industry.
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According to the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), 705,044 foreign nationals received dermatology treatments in 2024, a 117-fold surge compared with 2009 when just over 6,000 patients sought such care.
Dermatology now accounts for 56.6 per cent of all foreign medical visits, a sharp rise from 9.3 per cent 15 years ago.
The dermatology boom helped push overall foreign patient arrivals to a record 1.17 million in 2024, nearly double the previous year’s 610,000, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare. The cumulative number of foreign medical tourists since 2009 has now reached 5.05 million.
The government framed the surge as a milestone on its roadmap. “We were able to achieve – ahead of schedule – the government’s original goal of attracting 700,000 foreign patients by 2027,” Jung Eun-young, the health ministry’s director general for health industry policy, said in an April 3 statement.
Until recently, plastic surgery and internal medicine dominated South Korea’s medical tourism sector. In 2019, internal medicine attracted 19.2 per cent of foreign patients, followed by plastic surgery at 15.3 per cent and dermatology at 14.4 per cent. By 2023, however, dermatology had overtaken both fields to claim the largest share of overseas visitors.