The Face of Global Services: Asians Flock to South Korea for Plastic Surgery

Medical tourism is thriving. People from everywhere with the means and the will are seeking out locales where they can get operations and medications unavailable in their home countries. It seems that South Korea has become the plastic surgery capital of Asia, as throngs of Chinese and Japanese are journeying there to improve their looks. The implication for the US and Europe, which used to have a virtual lock on this sort of service, is that they are going to have to continue to improve their offerings in more sectors than manufacturing or they run the risk of becoming real-world Disneylands. The Economist reports:

"VISITORS taking the underground to Gangnam, the new money district of Seoul, often remark at the vast numbers of adverts for plastic surgery found plastered all over both trains and platforms. Those alighting at Sinsa or Apgujong stations in particular will find themselves bombarded with exhortations to "round your rectangular jaw", or before-and-after images of small and large diamond rings. South Korea's fascination with plastic surgery is not a new development, but as the word has spread, the business has changed.

Foreigners from the near abroad are getting in on the act. Korea is now benefiting from droves of Japanese and Chinese in particular taking the short flight over, having a quick nip or tuck, and doing a little shopping or sightseeing, before going home prettier. The head surgeon of BK Dongyang Plastic Surgery, a group which operates out of a 16-storey building, travels all around Asia giving consultations for prospective clients; in the words of BK’s own website, "South Korea is Asia's plastic surgery capital ... [Head surgeon] Dr Kim Byung-gun might well be its tsar." (Mayor, tsar, what have you.)

BK though is one of just 430 such clinics in Gangnam, an area long considered Korea’s lodestar of materialism and flashiness. Many of them are reporting annual increases of 20% or more in the number of foreign clients, most of whom come seeking to look like popular Korean stars, singers and actors alike.

The trend is part of an overall boom in medical tourism, which is seeing in excess of 80,000 international arrivals a year. In a nation that often struggles to attract foreign visitors, it is hardly surprising that the authorities have begun actively encouraging this trade. It is now aiming at a target of 400,000 such visitors in 2015. Gangnam's district office reportedly has 47 special co-ordinators who can be called on to assist clinics in communicating with foreign clients. The major clinics however have already taken the precaution of hiring staff who are fluent in Chinese, Japanese, English and other languages