An Analysis on International Competitiveness of Medical Tourism Industry in S.Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia

Abstract

This study is aimed to evaluate the international competitiveness of Korean medical tourism industry and to suggest strategical proposals for holding a dominant position in the competition. As a framework of analysis, this study used Porter"s Diamond Model which includes factor condition, demand condition (the size and quality of domestic market), related and supporting industries, strategy, structure, and rivalry, government and chance factors in the category of competitiveness. For the analysis, the Competitiveness Annual Report released by the International Management Development (IMD), World Economic Forum (WEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), and survey data conducted by each organization in each country, were used, and Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia that are vigorously growing the medical tourism industry in Asia, were chosen as comparable countries. As the result, Singapore showed the highest international competitiveness in the medical tourism industry, and it was followed by Korea (88), Malaysia (84) and Thailand (64), based on the score of 100 of Singapore. Korea had a relatively strong competitiveness in demand conditions (100) and factor conditions (85), but had a weaker competitiveness in strategy, structure and rivalry aspect (72) than competitors. Moreover, it was analyzed that as a strategy for growth of Korean medical tourism industry, it would be effective to intensively use labor (100), facility resources (100) and capital (56) which were evaluated as strengths regarding opportunity factors, from the perspectives of insurance (100), market (95) and consumers (86). In addition, there would be a need for effort to make up for the weakness of values (87) and business performance (36).