China promotes medical tourism

The Chinese government is making efforts to promote the country as a world-class medical tourism destination in its own right.  A big-time push is underway to grasp a share of the lucrative and growing healthcare travel market, one in which six million patients go abroad for treatment each year to the tune of an estimated $100 billion USD.  In 2013, a huge portion of these travelers are heading to Asian medical tourism hot spots like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, China is now selling patients all over the world on the country’s modern hospitals and technology, English-speaking doctors and surgeons, and excellence in both common and cutting-edge procedures that are popular with medical tourists like infertility treatments, stem-cell therapy, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and gamma knife radiosurgery for brain cancer, to name a few.

Major Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing – with their top-notch facilities and oftentimes Western-trained doctors – have taken serious steps towards becoming legitimate destinations in the competitive medical tourism marketplace.  The former, in fact, established the Shanghai Medical Tourism Products and Promotion Platform (SHMTPPP) which is an official government-supported medical tourism portal.  It is tasked with promoting China as a leading destination for advanced healthcare, and its website provides a wealth of information pertaining to China’s top hospitals, the most popular procedures with overseas patients, and costs.

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Hainan to set up foreign medical zone

China's southernmost island of Hainan Province will set up a "special zone," where overseas medical institutions will enjoy preferential business policies for boosting medical tourism, a senior official said Wednesday.
The Boao Lecheng International Medical Travel Zone will be located along the east coast of the island and near the town of Boao, where the Boao Forum for Asia has been held annually since 2001, said Hainan governor Jiang Dingzhi.
Jiang said medical travels, already popular in some Asian countries like Singapore and India, combine travels with leisure and health care, and are likely to boom in China thanks to the rising living standards of people.
The zone, already approved by the State Council on Feb. 28, will enjoy preferential policies that are seen nowhere else, the governor said.
Foreign medical institutions will be allowed to set up business within the zone, while medical joint ventures will not be subject to a share ceiling, a limitation upon overseas medical business in China, Jiang said.
Lower taxes will be granted to imported medical instruments and medicines in the zone, and frontier medical programs like stem cell research will be allowed, Jiang said.
"It is the only travel zone of its kind in the country and I am confident that it will be a success," Jiang, a deputy to the National People's Congress, the top legislature, told reporters on the sidelines of the parliamentary session.
The tropical island province, with its sun, sea and sand, is striving to build itself into an internationally famed travel destination.
According to the provincial statistics bureau, visitors to the island exceeded 33 million in 2012, with travel revenues hitting 37.9 billion yuan (6 billion U.S. dollars).
Jiang, however, noted that travel business on the island is more traditional, hence the need for modern travel modes of technological and cultural attraction.
Covering an area of 200 square kilometers, the zone will be built with an investment up to 100 billion yuan. "It is a huge program," he said.
Jiang said there is no detailed timetable for the program, but he hoped the zone will be operational within two or three years. "The construction of the medical travel zone has already started," he added.
Source: People's Daily

Taiwan gives green light to mainland medical tourism

Chinese with NT$200,000 can visit Taiwan for medical treatment

The regulations for Chinese coming to Taiwan for medical services have been eased to increase economic growth and boost the international competitiveness of the medical industry, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) announced yesterday.
The NIA said that Chinese citizens who are over 20 years old and have savings over NT$200,000 or have annual income over NT$500,000 can apply to visit Taiwan for health inspections or medical cosmetology with their relatives and spouses.
Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功), director-general of the NIA, said that this rule from the revised Regulations Governing the Entry Permission to Taiwan Area for the People from Mainland China will become effective tomorrow.
“With this revised regulation, Taiwanese health inspection and medical cosmetology industries will be able to compete internationally,” Hsieh said. “This can also attract more Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan.
“Allowing Chinese to come to Taiwan to enjoy great medical cosmetology services also demonstrates Taiwan's ability and development in the industry.”
According to the NIA, medical organizations can request that travel agencies apply with the NIA for business activities that involve Chinese coming to Taiwan for medical services.
Source: China Post

Rise in medical tourism from China

About 74% of Chinese say they would like to travel overseas for cheaper medical treatment

by Liu Jie
The number of medical tourists from China is rising because of cheaper costs and better services overseas.
Talking about her recent trip to Thailand, Wang Jingxian said it was "really worthy as well as comfortable and happy".
The 35-year-old Beijing white-collar worker traveled to Bangkok in October for skin laser surgery to rejuvenate her appearance at Bumrungrad International Hospital, one of the world's top 10 multiple-specialty medical centers targeting patients globally.
"I appreciated the environment and services of the hospital. And it's affordable, even cheaper than the private medical institutes in Beijing," Wang said.
It has become a trend in China for middle-income and affluent people to travel abroad for medical care services.
An online survey conducted by Ipsos, a France-based market research company, shows 74 percent of Chinese respondents said they would look outside the country for cheaper healthcare services.
According to the poll covering 24 nations, 59 percent of respondents in the Asia-Pacific region would consider traveling to another country to receive medical or dental care if the costs were significantly lower than in his or her country. In Latin America the figure was 64 percent. In the Middle East and Africa it was 63 percent.
The findings shed light on medical tourism, an increasingly popular worldwide phenomenon that is becoming a formalized industry in many countries.
Chinese people's interests in overseas medical tourism might be attributed to limited and competitive medical resources in the domestic market, the high-quality and considerable number of services in well-known foreign private hospitals, relatively low costs overseas and the added value of travel, according to Hu Bo, chairman of Ciming Health Checkup Management Group Co Ltd.
Wang said she spent around $1,000 for surgery and hospitalization in Bangkok. With flight tickets and some incidental fees, the 10-day trip cost her $2,000.
"The hospital's lobby was like a five-star hotel offering concierge-style services. The medical practitioners were patient and nice. The food was really fantastic. All of these things were impressive," she said.
Hu said that most Chinese middle-class health travelers are eyeing Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand and Malaysia, while some of the richer ones are going to developed markets such as Switzerland for anti-aging therapy using sheep placentas and Germany for general health checkups and health improvement.
Malaysia is attracting Chinese people with a six-month visa brought into play last year. Chinese medical tourists to the nation rose 48 percent year-on-year in 2011.
South Korea is well known for its plastic surgery services. A source in the South Korean embassy in China said it issued 1.07 million visas to Chinese medical travelers last year, up 386 percent year-on-year. At the same time, there were 2.05 million visits by Chinese people to the East Asian country, an annual increase of 23.6 percent.
Read more: China Daily