Korea’s dynamic transit tour on the rise

SEOUL – Some tourists in South Korea need more than a passport, a visa and a return ticket to be allowed to depart.

Foreign visitors who undergo cosmetic surgery in this popular destination now have to secure certification from their surgeons to settle the disparity between their passport and visa photos and their new appearances to pass through Immigration at the airport.

That’s how good Korean aesthetic doctors are.

Medical tourism in Korea has grown significantly since it started in 2009 when the medical law was revised, with eye and nose surgery hospitals and centers mushrooming in tourism spots like the busy Myeongdong shopping district.

To match the popularity of cosmetic surgery offered in Thailand and Singapore, private entities in Korea developed a new model of medical tourism called “Dynamic Transit Tour (DTT).”

About two kilometers or five minutes by car from the Incheon International Airport is the state-of-the-art INHA International Medical Center (IIMC), an innovative center for medical tourism in Korea. It provides quick and convenient medical services for passengers transferring to another country during their layover.

Clients usually stay for about six hours for check-up or for longer hours when undergoing procedures.

IIMC, which opened in 2012, has been a DTT-designated hospital by Korea Tourism Service, Incheon International Airport Corp. and Incheon Medical Tourism Foundation since August 2014.

Heidi Kim, marketing and global affairs section head of the IIMC, said they cater to many in-demand services: plastic surgery, dermatology, dentistry, traditional medicine and internal medicine, and health checkup.

“We have procedures and equipment like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and Americans come here because it’s less than half the price as compared to cost of the same service in the US,” she revealed.

MRI in INHA costs about $450 to $900 for a procedure that just takes about an hour.

For plastic surgery, they offer face contouring for $720 (one-hour procedure), ulthera face lifting for $2,270 (one-hour procedure), nose filler for $720 (20-minute procedure) and nasolabial folds filler for $1,090 (20-minute procedure).

Kim also bared that while the IIMC has more Korean clients, foreign clients have grown over the past years. The medical center has tapped professionals from Russia, China and Japan to easily facilitate communication with foreign clients.

INHA, an affiliate of Korean Air and Hanjin tours, is open Mondays to Fridays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Despite the rise of DTT, surgery clinics in Seoul have remained the popular option for foreigners undergoing cosmetic surgery procedures in Korea.

LASEK laser eye surgery is one of the most popular procedures here. A popular treatment for astigmatism, shortsighted or longsighted conditions common among Asians, this surgery involves reshaping of the cornea of the eye using a laser.

This procedure is commonly offered in clinics in Seoul for an average cost of $1,500.

Rhinoplasty, or nose surgery, is also common in Korea, and popular clinics can be found in the Gangnam district. This operation costs about $3,000.

But because of the popularity of plastic surgery in Korea, prices could go down as clinics usually offer promos and discounts, especially for group packages.

Joy Lee, a tour guide in Seoul, admitted she has undergone eye surgery in 1997 and still enjoys its benefits 18 years after.

Korean officials, however, admitted the significant drop in the country’s medical tourism and in the tourism industry in general over the past three months due to the outbreak of the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that killed 36 people and sickened nearly 200.