Jeju Healthcare Town in Korea to attract medical tourists

Jeju Healthcare Town, part of Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC), has broken ground and expects to be built by 2015 on the self-governing island off South Korea. This will be the first medical town in Korea to provide a variety of healthcare services on one site. It will offer medical check-up clinics, rehabilitation centres, medical research and development centres, and more.

Jeju Healthcare Town, part of Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC), has broken ground and expects to be built by 2015 on the self-governing island off South Korea.
This will be the first medical town in Korea to provide a variety of healthcare services on one site. It will offer medical check-up clinics, rehabilitation centres, medical research and development centres, and more. Byon Jong-il of JDC explains, “A healthcare town is where everything about health is concentrated in one location. Although there are many of these in other countries, it is the very first to be built in Korea. Jeju is the perfect place for a healthcare town to be established not only because it has a great natural landscape but also because it has a clean environment and abundant natural resources. Korea is also famous for its Oriental medicine. Jeju is a great place for medical tourism because it can combine such medicine with its environment.”
Jeju Healthcare Town is being built on a 1.54 million-square-meter site, 34 % of which will be preserved as green areas. The town will have three different parks — the wellness park, the medical park, and the research park — to provide specialized services to patients and visitors. The wellness park will be a medical complex focusing on healthcare and recreation.

The medical park will provide advanced medical services such as specialized hospitals and long-term care facilities. The town is one of six core projects to help the island become internationally recognized. The other five projects include a science park, global education city, resort-type residential complex, Seogwipo tourism port, and a history theme park.

The aim is to build the town into a global medical tourism site that attracts not only Korean patients but also those from abroad. Byon Jong-il adds,” We plan to attract medical tourists from abroad. We do not have a specific target, but we expect there will be many Chinese tourists in the coming decade or two. So in the short term, we will focus on attracting Asian medical tourists. The town will provide clinics for internal medicine, orthopedics, cosmetic surgery, dentistry and more. The island’s clean natural environment will be perfect for treating seriously ill patients over a long period of time.”

JDC plans to connect local hospitals with foreign ones for active exchanges of medical services and know-how. Seoul National University Hospital will be participating in the project in a development consortium with Neulproon Medical Foundation, Seowoo Co Ltd, Zhong Da Real Estate and ADI Health Care. Zhong Da Real Estate will be responsible for overseas marketing, while Neulproon Medical Foundation will become the main operator of healthcare facilities at the resort complex. ADI Health Care Co will build and operate healthcare facilities. Greenland Group from Shanghai will build facilities at the wellness park.
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