ROUNDTABLE AI-driven anti-aging fuels Korea's next medical tourism wave
Participants at the Medicon Black Roundtable pose in Gangnam District, Seoul, Tuesday. From left are Kim Jae-kyoung, managing director of Content and Business Planning at The Korea Times; Kim Sung-ho, director of Minish Dental Hospital; Park Ki-bum, CEO of Personal Beauty GU Clinic; Kim Jin-kuk, president of the Korea Medical Tourism Promotion Association; Dr. Lee In-sik of B&VIIT Eye Center; Park Jun-gyun, president of Medi Scan; and Bae Stefan SJ, general manager of Lienjang Plastic Surgery & Aesthetic Clinic. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
Specialists detail AI's role in their fields amid Korea's record visitors
Korea's medical tourism industry is on the cusp of its next leap, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and anti-aging care converging to reshape treatment across specialties.
Panelists at the Medicon Black Roundtable on Tuesday said Korea already has skilled medical staff and technology and AI now makes possible what wasn't before.
Hosted by The Korea Times and the Korea Medical Tourism Promotion Association (KMTPA), the roundtable brought together specialists from Korea's five key medical tourism fields: ophthalmology, plastic surgery, dermatology, dentistry and health checkups. Panelists examined how AI and anti-aging could fuel Korea's medical tourism leap, from diagnosis to treatment.
"Combine Korea's clinical strengths with AI, K-beauty, wellness and its national brand, and medical tourism can go beyond simply attracting foreign patients," said Kim Jae-kyoung, managing director of Content and Business Planning at The Korea Times.
With anti-aging drawing growing interest, hospitals no longer need to offer a single specialty, panelists said, adding that bundling ophthalmology, dentistry, health checkups and other services could create a much larger market.
Kim Jin-kuk, president of the KMTPA, said his goal is to build a group that represents Korea's anti-aging and beauty industry, which remains fragmented.
"More people are coming to hospitals for presbyopia, but they also want treatment for their skin, hair and facelifts and want to know how to take care of themselves day to day. These should all come together under one roof," Kim said.
Medical tourism is emerging as one of Korea's next core industries. Foreign patients visiting Korea hit a record 2.01 million in 2025, up 71.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Panelists take part in the Medicon Black Roundtable in Gangnam District, Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
Related spending has also risen. Their total card spending reached more than 3 trillion won ($2.24 billion) in the first half of this year, up 25.6 percent from the same period last year, according to a Korea Health Industry Development Institute analysis of domestic payment data from Hana Card's overseas-issued cards.
Spending in the medical sector reached more than 1.4 trillion won, up 38.6 percent, about 2.4 times the 16.3 percent growth rate of non-medical sectors.
Kim Ji-hwan, director of the Global Center at Lienjang Plastic Surgery & Aesthetic Clinic, said AI helps doctors accurately grasp foreign patients' needs, bridging language and cultural gaps more intuitively than translation alone.
"Expressions like 'it's a bit saggy right here' or 'we can lift it like this' are felt differently across cultures," Kim said. "When patients use AI to show what they want to look like, or doctors run simulations of what's possible, we can have a more accurate conversation than one filtered through interpretation."
Graphic by Cho Sang-won
Kim added that because foreign patients often have limited time to recover, treatments need to be fast. By accurately analyzing each patient's needs, he said, doctors can choose a more surgical approach for structural change, or a simpler regenerative one for others.
Dr. Lee In-sik of B&VIIT Eye Center said presbyopia is the key anti-aging issue in ophthalmology, and AI is bringing major improvements there as well.
"We're now treating presbyopia we couldn't treat before. With lens implantation, for example, years of AI research let us determine lens type and position through simulation. That's a major advantage," Lee said.
Park Jun-gyun, president of Medi Scan, a health checkup center, said the field has also seen major AI advances and is now branching into anti-aging.
"We use checkup data to detect diseases and underlying conditions, then connect that to anti-aging treatment, and patient satisfaction has been very high," Park said.
Kim Sung-ho, a director at Minish Dental Hospital, said AI is reshaping dentistry, including how the industry treats aging teeth.
"A hundred years ago, people didn't live long enough to notice teeth aging. Now that life expectancy has grown, people have started noticing the problem," Kim said. "AI can make processes like biting into rubber molds and mixing and pouring materials more advanced and their quality more consistent."
Park Ki-bum, CEO of Personal Beauty GU Clinic, said the global "longevity" trend, maximizing health span over lifespan, is now shifting toward holistic care, a lifestyle centered on sustainable well-being rather than disease prevention alone.
"About 70 to 80 percent of our clinic's visitors are foreign nationals, and their satisfaction is high. Having visited aesthetic and longevity clinics abroad, I can say Korea is clearly better," Park said.
Park added that Korea, especially the Gangnam district, where many hospitals are clustered, is seen by many global companies as a testbed. In that sense, he said, Korea can lead the global trend.
"We're developing an AI operating system so that when our clinic's brand expands overseas, local operations can run on it. We've also built a consultation module that recommends tailored content for each patient," Park said.