Upgraded Malacca Airport to Help Attract Medical Tourists

Tagged: Air Asia, Batu, Berebdam, Firefly, Health Tourist, Malacca, Malaysia, Medical Tourism, Medical Travel, Riau Airlines

The Malacca airport in Malaysia recently underwent renovations. The upgrades are expected to result in the attraction of more health tourists to the country. The airport, located in Batu Berendam, is expected to receive around 500,000 travelers in the next three years.

The airport authorities spent over 130 million Malaysian Ringgit to upgrade the airport facilities. The changes made at the airport should help attract more medical travelers especially those from neighboring Asian countries such as Indonesia and Singapore. Even before the airport was upgraded Malaysia was already seeing an increase in medical tourists to the country. For example, the Putra Hospital earned revenue of RM 100 million from health tourism packages last year. In the previous year, the same hospital recorded a revenue of RM70 million. This means that the revenue from medical tourism increased by RM30 million in a single year. With the improvements that were made to the airport, more health travelers are expected to travel to Malaysia from places like Sumatra. There are currently 70 million people in Sumatra.

Riau Airlines will fly once a day to the airport. Air Asia will start operating in the airport in November while Firefly will start flying to the airport in September.