South Korea’s medical tourism industry has benefited from the revisions done in the law to allow hospitals to market its services to foreign patients.

In May 2009, the number of foreign patients that visited South Korea jumped to 1,062. This accounts for a 40% increase in visitors in that month alone compared to the number of foreign patients that visited the country in 2008 for the same month.

The South Korean government recently launched a new visa category for medical tourists. The foreign tourist visa, called visa M, was designed to accommodate foreign medical tourists to the country to boost the medical tourism industry in South Korea. It is the government’s answer to the medical industry’s requests for the simplification of the visa application process.