Ambitious medical travel target for Malaysia

The Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) has launched the Malaysia Year of Healthcare Travel 2020.

MHTC, an agency of Malaysia’s Finance Ministry, is the promoter of medical tourism to the country. In the 2020 Budget, the government allocated RM25 million (US$6 million) to MHTC to strengthen Malaysia’s position as the preferred destination for oncology, cardiology and fertility treatment.

MHTC is tasked with ensuring that the medical tourism target of two million medical tourists, including one million from Indonesia, is reached or beaten. The revenue target is RM2 billion (US$0.5 billion)

To achieve this, MHTC has launched the Malaysia Year of Healthcare Travel 2020 (MyHT2020), run in conjunction with the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign, promoting the importance of physical and mental well-being by inviting everyone to seek health and wellness treatment while enjoying Malaysia’s tourism attractions.

MYHT2020 showcases Malaysia Healthcare’s seamless end-to-end patient experience journey with four key touch points of the patient journey, comprising the patient arrival, healthcare, wellness and the departure experiences.

In other supporting initiatives, Malaysia Airlines has signed an agreement with MHTC for joint marketing activities to position Malaysia as an international medical tourism destination. MHTC has opened a second patient referral centre in China, and Eithad Airways has a new partnership with Tourism Malaysia to attract visitors from Europe and the Middle East to the country via the airline’s Abu Dhabi hub. This will support the tourism board’s Visit Malaysia 2020 marketing campaign developed to encourage tourism from Europe and the Middle East.