The rise in the popularity of K-culture and the ease of connecting with clinics in South Korea through social media are prompting medical tourists from around the world, particularly Asia, to flock to the country for aesthetic treatments.
Skin care and plastic surgery were on top of the list of treatments sought by international patients in 2024. Of the nearly 1.2 million foreign tourists that visited South Korea for medical services that year, around 57 per cent underwent dermatological procedures and about 11 per cent opted for plastic surgery, said a report by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute in June 2025.
Just 10 years earlier, there were about 266,000 international medical tourists, of which 8.4 per cent sought dermatological treatments. Plastic surgery accounted for 10.2 per cent.
“That said, I’ve heard of many horror stories in Korea as well – about doctors just rushing through treatments.” She also pointed out how general anaesthesia is often offered to those undergoing aesthetic procedures, including machine-based treatments and skin boosters. “There’s always that fear of not knowing what they are putting into you, if people select that option,” she noted.
On each trip, she spends less than S$1,000 on treatments, around S$300 for flights and roughly S$100 to S$150 per night to stay in Seoul. She also checks TikTok for reviews of the aesthetic clinics she goes to, as well as Naver Maps. “That is what the locals use,” she said.
Prices are more modest in South Korea because the rents per square foot are lower and materials are cheaper, Dr Shenthilkumar Naidu, a Singapore-based plastic surgeon popularly known as Dr Shens, told BT.
“A lot of those materials, say fillers or even skin boosters, come from South Korea. So their prices here (are higher) because the products have to be registered via the Health Sciences Authority, which has a licensing cost,” he explained.
So, a product that is available for the equivalent of S$300 in South Korea could cost a consumer here S$1,000, he added.
The rise of concierge services, where middlemen help Singapore residents arrange trips to South Korea that include clinic visits, hotel stays and flights, has also boosted medical tourism to the country, noted Dr Shens.
Such packages often include translation and transport services, which allow customers to consult non-English-speaking doctors and visit clinics on the outskirts of Seoul, where rents are even cheaper, he added. This can bring down overall costs.
Japanese and Chinese nationals accounted for the largest share of medical tourists who visited South Korea in 2024. Singaporeans formed a smaller but significant contingent, with more than 26,000 of them travelling to the East Asian country that year for medical-related purposes.
Michelle, who declined to give her surname, is a Singaporean in her early 30s who visits South Korea for beauty treatments annually. She told The Business Times that she prefers going to Seoul, mainly because procedures are cheaper there than in the city-state.
“Singapore is actually better, and the expertise of some of the doctors are on a par with (those in) South Korea. However, (when) you compare the prices, Singapore’s are a lot higher,” said Michelle, who works in the advertising industry.
A round of Botox injections to sharpen the jawline can cost S$400 to S$600 in Singapore, but only 124,000 won (S$108.43) to 369,000 won in South Korea.
South Korea’s cumulative annual number of total patients from 2009 to 2024
5,047,809
