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Malaysia: an emerging global giant in medical tourism.

From 643,000 medical tourist arrivals in 2011 to over 1.2 million in 2018, Malaysia has grown its health tourism industry to become a leading global destination for international patients in Asia and beyond. From a revenue of USD 127 million in 2011, the medical tourism business generated over $362 million from the market in 2018. 

What is the secret to the phenomenal growth in Malaysia? Recent analyses suggest that there is solid governmental participation in the market and formidable public-private healthcare collaboration. The secret lies in the creation of an agency - the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) - saddled with the responsibility of promoting Malaysia as a medical tourism destination by revamping its international healthcare brand. 

Malaysia: Actively Expanding its Market Base in Medical Tourism

The MHTC, an agency under the country’s Ministry of Finance, is actively expanding the country’s medical tourism market base, targeting more international patients. While the main sources of medical tourism arrivals to the country are the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, China, India, and the United States, the MHTC is actively looking to set up strong market ties with the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and countries in the Middle East. 

The MHTC is promoting its 79 hospitals to Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Brunei, and Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. 

In addition to promoting its healthcare brand to other countries, the efforts of the council at boosting healthcare quality, affordability, and superior patient experience have led to a compound annual growth rate of 16 to 17 percent over the last five years. This is ahead of the global average of 10-12 percent and the Asia-Pacific’s average of 12-14 percent. 

The MHTC estimates that by 2020, more than two million international patients would visit Malaysia, doubling its revenue to approximately USD 680 million. 

Malaysia is now in strong competition with the giants of the ASEAN medical tourism industry; Thailand and Singapore. Slowly overtaking Singapore as a medical tourism destination despite the greater availability of cutting-edge technology and skilled professionals in Singapore, Malaysia still has Thailand as its strong competitor. Only in 2017, Thailand recorded more than 2 million medical tourist arrivals into the country.

Excellence in Cardiovascular Care and IVF

To compete with world-class hospitals and medical centers across Asia and beyond, Malaysia is carving a niche in cardiology and fertility treatments, with more than 33 advanced heart treatment centers in the country, including its renowned National Heart Institute . Its fertility centers also boast of success rates that are well ahead of the global average.  

The National Heart Institute remains a leader in cardiovascular disease diagnosis and treatment in Asia. It is the national referral center for cardiovascular diseases and it provides world-class care for simple and complex heart diseases. The National Heart Institute is harnessing its position in the Malaysian medical tourism market by collaborating with medical centers of excellence across the world including the Royal Papworth Hospital , the leading heart and lung treatment center in the UK, Hanoi Heart Center in Vietnam, and the University of Australia, Adelaide. 

According to MHTC officials, the institute is equipped with Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies to enhance diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases. With advanced procedural techniques such as multi-slice computed tomography, endoscopic vein harvesting, and heart-assist devices, Malaysia is projecting its excellence in cardiac care on the global healthcare stage. 

Furthermore, to serve the growing number of medical tourists who seek advanced care for cardiovascular diseases more efficiently, the National Health Institute has established its International Patient Center (IPC) . The IPC offers services to boost patient experience from departure to arrival. These services include visa and immigration services, pre-departure and post-treatment coordination, transfer of health data, and insurance claims.

The institute has expanded its frontiers into other parts of Asia, with liaison offices in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Indonesia.

Building Partnerships to Promote the Malaysian Health Travel Brand

Furthermore, the MHTC recently partnered with Air Asia Indonesia to promote Penang as Malaysia’s top destination for medical tourism, with Air Asia as the official airline for direct travel. According to the CEO of MHTC, Penang receives approximately 60 percent of medical tourist arrivals, with the state generating more than USD 120 million from medical tourism in 2017. This partnership hopes to expand the medical tourism market in Penang. 

Through the partnership, MHTC will arrange medical trips, including airport pickups, for patients traveling from Indonesia to Malaysia. Furthermore, Air Asia will also offer flight discounts for medical travel coordinated by the MHTC. 

Public-private partnerships are also one of the core factors responsible for the growth of medical tourism in Malaysia. For example, Sunway Medical Center , one of the largest private hospitals in Malaysia is at the forefront of promoting Malaysia’s position as a choice medical tourism destination. 

Sunway Medical Center provides cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic modalities across more than 60 specialties. With an international accreditation by the Australian Council of Healthcare Standards (ACHS), Sunway Medical Center has been recognized for its commitment to deliver the highest quality of medical care in Malaysia. 

The center prides itself for top-notch quality in cancer treatment. Recently, it was approved as a Designated Centre of Integrated Oncology and Palliative Care by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). 

The center also boosts its patient experience through its International Patient Centre, which offers online flight booking assistance, free airport transport, and visa extension to clients. The International Patient center also provides translators and interpreters in Arabic, Mandarin, Indonesia, and Japanese for patients who speak those languages. 

For its commitment to excellent medical care, Sunway Medical Centre was awarded the 2018 Medical Tourism of the Year in the Asia Pacific by the Global Health & Travel Awards. 

Malaysia is building many more centers of excellence like these and harnessing advanced technology to deliver world-class health care. With this phenomenal progress made in the medical travel landscape in Malaysia, the country is on the verge of setting itself apart as a destination of choice for healthcare travels.

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The Medical Tourism Magazine (MTM), known as the “voice” of the medical tourism industry, provides members and key industry experts with the opportunity to share important developments, initiatives, themes, topics and trends that make the medical tourism industry the booming market it is today.

• Malaysia Unveils Blueprint To Accelerate Growth In Healthcare Tourism
• Media Coverage

The Southeast Asian nation expects revenue from medical tourism to potentially equal or surpass pre-pandemic levels by 2025.

As international travel gradually resumes post-pandemic, Malaysia is pulling all the stops to speed up the growth in medical tourism, guided by a new blueprint unveiled last month by the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC).

Founded in 2009 under the purview of the Ministry of Health, MHTC works with industry players and service providers to grow the health travel sector by promoting the Malaysia Healthcare brand globally. Its new blueprint aims to highlight the country’s healthcare travel ecosystem with a focus on enhancing the traveler experience in the next few years as economies around the world recover from the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

To enhance and elevate the traveler experience, the blueprint will highlight five areas: quality, affordability, safety, hospitality and seamless journey. The country aims to maintain high quality healthcare services at affordable prices, while equipping highly trained specialists with the latest medical technologies.

The plan also calls for the cooperation among stakeholders to rebuild the industry, amplify the Malaysia Healthcare brand and increase global awareness of the country’s niche offerings such as the Fertility Hub of Asia, the Cardiology Hub of Asia, and the Cancer Care Center of Excellence.

Charting a New Course

“The emphasis will be on providing the best ‘Malaysia Healthcare’ travel experience with world-class medical services at an affordable price, great hospitality and an overall seamless journey for the traveler,” says Mohd Daud Mohd Arif, CEO of MHTC.

“By 2025, we hope to achieve a targeted US$400 million in receipts from healthcare travel, with a significant positive spillover effect into the rest of the Malaysian economy.” That will potentially equal or surpass the hospital receipts generated from healthcare travelers in 2019, just before the pandemic upended the global economy.

Medical tourism has had a significant contribution to the country, with the government estimating the spillover of such medical receipts to the broader economy at US$1.5 billion in 2019 when 1.2 million medical tourists visited the country. The industry achieved an average annual growth of 16% between 2015 and 2019.

While Malaysia’s popularity as a leading healthcare travel destination in Southeast Asia has grown in the past decade, its value propositions of quality, accessibility (to top specialists and medical facilities) and affordability, has grabbed the attention of the international media. Last year, the International Medical Travel Journal in the U.K. named the country “Destination of the Year” while the U.S.-based International Living magazine ranked Malaysia as the “Best Country in the World for Healthcare” from 2015 to 2019.

Anticipating pent-up demand among travelers seeking medical treatments in Malaysia in the post-pandemic years ahead, the country has positioned itself as a safe and trusted destination with a wide range of hospitality choices such as spa resorts, wellness centers and health-centric getaways. It will leverage technology to make the traveler experience even more seamless.

“For every plan and aspiration articulated today, we must bear in mind that the end goal is to build a sustainable future for the healthcare industry,” Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said during the launch of the blueprint last month.

Source: forbesasiacustom.com

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The Institut Jantung Negara (National Heart Institute), a member of the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, is among those in the World’s Best Hospitals 2024 (Malaysia) list. Facebook pic.

Two M’sian medical establishments included in ranking of world’s best hospitals

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This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 10, 2022 - October 16, 2022

SIX months after reopening its borders, Malaysia is seeing a return of foreign patients seeking medical care, say healthcare providers.

“[Since April 1,] we have seen an increasing trend of health tourists coming to seek treatment at Sunway Medical Centre. In August, we saw more than five times the growth of health tourist numbers in our hospital compared with April, with over 31,000 international patient visits recorded from January to July,” Sunway Healthcare Group managing director Datuk Lau Beng Long tells The Edge.

“The top treatments sought by foreign tourists are mainly cancer, blood disease, obstetrics and gynaecology, hepatology, orthopaedics, and ear, nose and throat, to name a few. We are also looking to develop new clinical services and niche products,” he says.

Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care (RSDH) has also observed a 10% pickup in its international healthcare patients from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. RSDH, which is equally owned by Sime Darby Bhd and Australia’s Ramsay Health Care Ltd, operates four hospitals in Malaysia and three in Indonesia.

IHH Healthcare Bhd says its foreign patient numbers have recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, with some of the markets in which the group operates in such as Turkey and Europe “having rebounded when borders reopened in 2021 and grown beyond pre-pandemic levels”.

“Foreign patients tend to visit IHH hospitals for high acuity treatments, which may not be available in their home countries. Such specialities include clinical and radiotherapy oncology, neurology, cardiology and orthopaedic surgery,” the group says in an email reply to The Edge. It adds that the hospital brands under the group such as Pantai, Gleneagles and Prince Court continue to underpin the recovery, demand and eventual growth of its foreign patient numbers.

However, the three healthcare providers declined to reveal their market share in the local medical tourism market.

“Currently, data with regard to international patient contribution for 2022 is scarce. However, we know from our earnings calls with management that international patients contributed 7% and 15% to KPJ Healthcare Bhd and IHH’s revenue respectively in 2019,” says an analyst with a bank-backed research house. “Many players are [also] hesitant to commit to revenue targets from the medical tourism segment for now, but that market is certainly set to look more upbeat as we go into 2023 and beyond.”

In a Sept 21 note, MIDF Research says it likes IHH for its “resilient financial performance on the strength of increasing inpatient volume and returning medical tourists post-pandemic, strong balance sheet and efficient local, regional and international collaborations”. It is maintaining a “buy” call on the stock with an unchanged target price (TP) of RM7.96.

The research house also has a “buy” call on KPJ Healthcare, with a revised TP of RM1.18 from RM1.14 previously. It points to KPJ Healthcare’s “favourable outlook in view of higher demand for hospital care and treatments, improving medical tourism, rising demand for elective medical procedures, demographic shift to a growing ageing population, and continuous utilisation of digital healthcare for its day-to-day operations”.

RHB Research analyst Jim Lim Khai Xhiang says while RSDH is a non-core business for Sime Darby, he believes Sime Darby and Ramsay are not in a rush to divest RSDH as it is a profitable business, usually contributing between 2% and 4% to Sime Darby’s operating profit.

“We think Sime Darby will continue to explore all options for RSDH, potentially including an IPO (initial public offering),” he writes in a Sept 12 report. Lim maintains a “buy” call on Sime Darby but with a lower TP of RM2.55 from RM2.75 previously after the group’s discussions with IHH to sell RSDH fell through last month.

Analysts covering Sunway Bhd are upbeat on its healthcare division Sunway Healthcare Group’s expansion, which includes pivoting to elderly living and post-natal confinement centres, a move seen as maximising revenue generation, as well as its targeted listing by 2029. Sunway Healthcare Group is 84% owned by Sunway and 16% by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd.

Kenanga Research analyst Lum Joe Shen points to Sunway Healthcare Group’s RM75 million net profit recorded in the first half ended June 30, 2022 (1HFY2022), noting that this is record-high profit as patient count has recovered nicely and is now above pre-pandemic levels.

“While we anticipate the healthcare segment to register all-time-high profits in FY2022, FY2023 and FY2024 will see slight negative earnings growth before showing growth again in FY2025, given the gestational losses expected from the three new incoming hospitals. That said, the new hospitals are expected to break even faster than the industry norm as established doctors with existing patients are coming on board,” he says in an Oct 5 note. He is maintaining an “outperform” call on Sunway, with a TP of RM2.05, while Loong ascribes a “buy” call on the counter with a TP of RM2.06.

According to Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) CEO Mohd Daud Mohd Arif, medical tourism in Malaysia is on course for a continuous and sustainable industry growth, which has been strategically proposed for rollout over the next four to five years, guided by the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Industry Blueprint 2021-2025 released in January.

He says Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry, branded Malaysia Healthcare, is considered a key economic growth driver, with a potential to contribute up to RM2 billion to the economy by 2025 with estimated spillover effects on air travel to accommodation, food and beverage, and leisure activities.

“For every ringgit spent on healthcare, an estimated three ringgit is spent on such ancillary services based on the pre-pandemic economic impact,” Mohd Daud tells The Edge. He adds that 1.2 million healthcare travellers from Indonesia, China, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Japan, the UK and the US in 2019 represent the top international arrivals seen also over the last decade, with orthopaedics, cardiology, fertility, neurology, oncology and health screenings recorded as the top fields sought for treatment.

The council’s data shows that Malaysia earned RM1.7 billion in medical travel revenue in 2019, with an estimated RM6 billion from other non-related healthcare expenditures such as air travel, transport, food and drink, accommodation and tourism activities.

MHTC says the Malaysian government is targeting hospital revenues (medical receipts only) from medical tourism to hit RM1 billion this year, increasing to RM1.3 billion in 2023, RM1.7 billion in 2024 and RM2 billion in 2025.

“While there is no specific data detailing the exact total count of medical tourists in Malaysia now, the tourist arrival figures published by the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (Tourism Malaysia) include international medical patients and their expenditure,” Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) president Christina Toh says.

Tourism Malaysia’s website shows that Malaysia registered 26.1 million arrivals and RM86.1 billion in tourism receipts in 2019. Arrivals plunged to 4.33 million in 2020 and just 130,000 in 2021, with tourism receipts falling to RM12.7 billion and RM240 million in the respective periods.

For 2022, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri has revised and set a new target of tourist arrivals at 9.2 million with tourism receipts of RM26.8 billion, after the country reportedly nearly surpassed its original 2022 target of 4.5 million tourist arrivals with RM11.1 billion in tourism receipts within the first seven months of the year. A total of 3.21 million tourist arrivals and RM9.35 billion of tourism revenue were recorded during the January-July period.

In MHTC’s blueprint, the council slated 2021 to 2023 to be a recovery phase, with 2024 and 2025 the period to rebuild the Malaysian healthcare industry.

Accelerating growth amid challenges

Over the next few years, healthcare groups in the country are planning to advance their offerings in services and products such as oncology, cardiology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopaedics, gastrointestinal, paediatrics and robotic services to tap foreign demand.

Sunway Medical Group, for instance, intends to also strengthen its quaternary services such as kidney transplant, paediatric heart surgery and bone marrow transplant, says Lau.

KPJ Healthcare will be targetting more surgical referrals from neighbouring countries, especially Asean and Asia-Pacific, says  its chief corporate officer Ariesza Noor.

However, healthcare players will face economic headwinds as high inflation remains, impinging on healthcare spending; there is a shortage of talent, especially nurses, with many being lured abroad by better remuneration packages in “bigger currencies”, as well as increasing competition; and rising healthcare costs are eating into profit margins.

In terms of healthcare players creating an ecosystem to address the international patient’s needs, Sunway City is an example, with its infrastructure as an integrated hub providing healthcare, travel, accommodation and leisure services within close proximity. “At the hospital side, we have invested in modernising our façade, enlarging physical spaces of clinical areas, putting up signage in different languages and, most importantly, developing a one-stop International Patient Centre that is equipped with medical officers, nurses and interpreters,” says Lau.

As for venturing into new areas of treatment to tap international demand for medical services, he says Sunway Medical Group sees “some potential in wellness, preventive medicine and niche offerings using advanced technologies in treating cancer and other diseases”.

“As inpatient days are getting shorter and cost of healthcare is rising, there are predictions that healthcare could eventually shift to the home. More investments and initiatives will be driven around establishing our cancer services, in particular, the areas of hemato-oncology and interventional radiology,” RSDH group CEO Peter Hong says.

MAH’s Toh says hospitals are currently working with hotels to host domestic and international patients who come to Malaysia for health screenings with accompanying persons such as family members. Its promotion is only in its infancy, but this will be increased in time to come. The price for these packages complete with the medical screening and a short stay comes in at RM1,000 to RM2,000.

Complementing regional treatments

Last December, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced the construction of the Bali International Hospital in Sanur — the country’s first health-focused special economic zone — to recoup IDR97 trillion (RM29 billion) in annual losses from wealthy Indonesians travelling to receive treatment in neighbouring nations. Jokowi reportedly said two million Indonesian patients were lost to overseas healthcare systems every year, and that the new hospital in Bali is expected to be completed and operational by mid-2023.

When asked if the new hospital would mean less medical visitors coming from Indonesia, MHTC’s Mohd Daud says there is an existing and mutually beneficial relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia in the healthcare sector for expert consultancy services, patient referrals and the facilitation of a seamless end-to-end journey for healthcare travellers. “For instance, we saw more than 670,000 healthcare travellers from Indonesia (coming to Malaysia) in 2019.”

MAH’s Toh concurs. “Indonesia is aggressively promoting its new Bali hospital and we may anticipate a slight loss of Indonesian patients, but as the population in Indonesia is very large, incoming patients from the nation should continue to grow.”

This article has been amended as Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care says it no longer owns the day surgery centre in Hong Kong. The error is regretted.

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Medical tourism in Malaysia: how can we better identify and manage its advantages and disadvantages?

Meghann ormond.

1 Cultural Geography Chair Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Wong Kee Mun

2 Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Chan Chee Khoon

3 Centre for Population Health, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Following the identification of medical tourism as a growth sector by the Malaysian government in 1998, significant government sector and private-sector investments have been channeled into its development over the past 15 years. This is unfolding within the broader context of social services being devolved to for-profit enterprises and ‘market-capable’ segments of society becoming sites of intensive entrepreneurial investment by both the private sector and the state. Yet, the opacity and paucity of available medical tourism statistics severely limits the extent to which medical tourism's impacts can be reliably assessed, forcing us to consider the real effects that the resulting speculation itself has produced and to reevaluate how the real and potential impacts of medical tourism are – and should be – conceptualized, calculated, distributed, and compensated for. Contemporary debate over the current and potential benefits and adverse effects of medical tourism for destination societies is hamstrung by the scant empirical data currently publicly available. Steps are proposed for overcoming these challenges in order to allow for improved identification, planning, and development of resources appropriate to the needs, demands, and interests of not only medical tourists and big business but also local populations.

Proponents generally envision how medical tourism – ‘all the activities related to travel and hosting a tourist who stays at least one night at the destination region, for the purpose of maintaining, improving or restoring health through medical intervention’ ( 1 ) – can be used by destinations to attract foreign exchange, mitigate health worker brain-drain, and improve health care and tourism infrastructure ( 2 ). Correspondingly, medical tourism has been actively embraced by governments and private-sector actors in a growing number of lower- and middle-income countries as a potentially powerful economic growth engine. Meanwhile, critics generally warn that medical tourism may harm destinations by stimulating private health care development unresponsive to locals’ needs and resources ( 3 ). Yet, although more scholars, governments, and medical bodies in source countries are calling attention to how medical tourism may adversely impact both source and destination societies ( 4 ), there has been relatively little outspoken resistance within destination countries to it.

Those engaging in contemporary debate over the current and potential benefits and adverse effects of medical tourism for destination societies generally turn to sorely inadequate government-reported medical tourism statistics – widely acknowledged to deploy opaque definitions and creative counting practices – to support their arguments ( 5 ). These statistics render medical tourism's actual volumes and contributions so difficult to gauge that the many estimates and claims made by those on either side of the debate should be treated with caution ( 6 ).

In Malaysia, one of Southeast Asia's most prominent medical tourism destinations, national medical tourism statistics derive from the reported numbers of all foreign patients treated by Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council–endorsed medical facilities and their associated revenue. These are published only at the national level, do not include all medical facilities, and do not recognize or measure medical tourism's diverse subnational direct and indirect economic and social impacts. Furthermore, available data indiscriminately encompass all registered patients with a foreign passport, which by default also encompass expatriates, migrants, business travelers, and holiday-makers for whom health care may not be the main motive for their stay ( 7 – 9 ). The opacity and paucity of available figures, therefore, severely limits the extent to which we can reliably quantify medical tourism's impacts in Malaysia. This quantitative void forces us both to consider the real effects that the speculation this void has itself produced and to reevaluate how the real and potential impacts of medical tourism are – and should be – conceptualized, calculated, distributed, and compensated for.

In this brief debate piece, we use the lenses of our diverse engagements with the Malaysian government, medical tourism industry, and health care providers and users to relate how medical tourism statistics have been used in Malaysia and reflect on the limitations of these framings. We then identify steps to more productively advance the discussion about the challenges and benefits of medical tourism.

Proponents’ perspective

The Malaysian government identified medical tourism as a growth sector during the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, when significant numbers of Indonesians began to turn to Malaysian private hospitals for affordable, quality health care. In the following decade, private hospitals – concentrated mainly in Penang, Melaka, Selangor, Sarawak, and Johor – worked alongside and through their respective state governments; private hospital associations; and the Malaysian Ministries of Health, Tourism, and Trade and Industry. They sought to attract not only neighboring Indonesians – characterized by high volumes yet low per patient expenditure – but also higher-spending medical tourists from further afield (e.g. Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Nepal, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle Eastern countries) ( 7 , 10 , 11 ). The Malaysian government's investment tax allowance further spurred private health care facilities promoting medical tourism to invest in internationally recognized accreditation schemes (e.g. Joint Commission International and Malaysian Society for Quality in Healthcare) and state-of-the-art medical equipment in order to develop technology-intensive private health care facilities and ensure ‘world-class’ care standards considered necessary to attract medical tourists ( 12 , 1 ).

With the 2010 launch of the Economic Transformation Program (ETP), intended to transform Malaysia into an upper middle-income country with a knowledge-based economy, interest in harnessing medical tourism's economic potential grew. The ETP earmarked health care as one of the country's 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) deemed to have the potential to spur growth ( 13 ). Part of the health care NKEA, medical tourism is intended to generate MYR 9.6 billion 1 in revenue and MYR 4.3 billion in gross national income and to require 5,300 more medical professionals by 2020 ( 14 ). For-profit hospitals are expected to invest MYR 335 million in hospital infrastructure in order to be prepared for 1.9 million foreign patients annually by 2020 ( 14 ). Despite the specificity of these targets, however, scant empirical data are publicly available to evaluate whether these targets are being met and, indeed, even the basis for such projections.

Medical tourism is believed to be contributing to the national economy. Government-reported revenue from medical tourism in Malaysia amounted to MYR 683 million – 9% above its 2013 target ( 15 ). Although this added only 0.1% to Malaysia's MYR 985 billion gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 ( 16 ), medical tourism's year-on-year double-digit growth is being used to attract foreign investment and joint ventures in the Malaysian health care industry (e.g. the 2013 Ramsay Sime Darby Healthcare joint venture ( 17 )). Large Malaysian health care conglomerates also plan to reap economic gains from medical tourism despite its current limited contribution. For example, although medical tourism contributed only 4% (MYR 67 million) to KPJ Healthcare Bhd's 2013 overall revenue, KPJ expects this to rise to 25% by 2020 by more intensively promoting its Malaysian facilities ( 15 , 18 ).

Although growing numbers of Malaysian health care facilities are actively promoting medical tourism, some 95% of Malaysian private hospitals’ clientele is reported to be Malaysian ( 19 ). Private and corporatized hospitals’ medical tourism revenue, therefore, is viewed as helping to not only sustain but also upgrade these facilities to local private health care users’ benefit, providing Malaysians with alternatives to crowded public health care provision. Investment in medical tourism infrastructure is furthermore considered to generate demand for goods and services in allied sectors (e.g. clinical research and development, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment) ( 14 ). Transport, retail, commercial care, and hospitality sectors can also benefit from spending by medical tourists and their companions, generating medical- and non-medical jobs and spurring the growth not just of large but also small and medium enterprises ( 1 , 10 ). Local businesses in Kuching, Melaka, and Johor Bahru, for example, are seen to be flourishing with the influx of cross-border Indonesian and Singaporean medical tourists. However, to date, no empirical evidence is available on the multiplier effect of medical tourism on other sectors and local economies. Such data would help to elucidate the effectiveness of government investment in the growth of the medical tourism industry.

Critics’ perspective

Malaysia's development as a medical tourism destination has unfolded within a context of health care corporatization and privatization that has profoundly transformed the country's health care landscape and horizons ( 20 , 21 ). Critics see medical tourism as an expression of health care commodification, highlighting the Malaysian state's multiple roles as funder and provider of public-sector health care, regulator, and pre-eminent investor in commercial health care.

Medical tourism is embedded in a broader political economy in which social services have been devolved to for-profit enterprise and ‘market-capable’ segments of society have become sites of intensive entrepreneurial investment by both the private sector and the state ( 7 ). Critics note, for example, that, although private hospitals account for approximately 30% of all hospital admissions ( 22 ), government-linked companies at both federal and provincial levels currently control more than 40% of commercial hospital beds in Malaysia ( 23 ). Among the country's most prominent hospitals endorsed for medical tourism are for-profit hospitals belonging to the Johor State Government–owned KPJ chain and the IHH Healthcare Bhd–owned Pantai and Gleneagles chains. IHH, the world's second-largest listed health care operator based on market capitalization, is majority-owned by the Malaysian government's sovereign investment arm, Khazanah ( 24 ). Both KPJ and IHH command ever-larger slices of the Asian health care market both through their acquisition of regional hospitals (e.g. KPJ's acquisitions in Indonesia and Bangladesh) and their promotion of medical tourism in Malaysia. 2

This novel situation is perceived to be rife with conflicts of interest and divergent priorities ( 7 , 20 , 21 ). Although health care is not inscribed in the Malaysian constitution as a right, Malaysian nationals have become accustomed to de facto entitlement to publicly provided and highly subsidized health care since decolonization in 1957. Citizens may or may not avail themselves of this universalist entitlement, yet even those who do not do so still benefit from its second-order effects. The availability of publicly provided health care (of a certain quality) acts as a restraining price bulwark that helps to keep private health care charges within a more affordable range. With the state's increasing stakes in commercial health care however, will there be a benign neglect of the public sector as the state encourages those who can afford it to migrate to the private sector for their healthcare needs? This could further entrench a two-tier health care system, with deluxe priority care for the better-off (including ‘medical tourists’) and a rump, underfunded public sector for the rest ( 25 , 26 ).

Might Malaysians, however, benefit indirectly from profits accruing to the public purse from medical tourism and other for-profit healthcare investments? The Malaysian national oil company Petronas’ total equity is approximately ten times that of IHH. Comparing the MYR 87.8 million that IHH paid in corporate taxes to the Malaysian government in FY2011 with the MYR 66.3 billion in taxes and dividends generated by Petronas in FY2012 suggests modest returns on IHH's healthcare investments ( 27 , 28 ). As for where revenue derived from medical tourism goes (e.g. special taxation regimes, economic leakages), little is known, and discussions about corporate accountability are absent.

Conclusions

The debate over the gains and adverse effects of ‘medical tourism’ is far from Malaysia-specific. Rather, it is a concern shared by medical tourism destinations more generally (as in Israel ( 29 ) and Costa Rica ( 30 )). However, given the great margin of uncertainty over basic data about medical tourism, conclusions on both sides are unavoidably speculative. Indeed, it is possible to assume – as we have shown here – diametrically opposed positions on the issue with little prospect of resolution.

There is much work to be done in order to better grasp medical tourism's actual impacts on destinations. This first requires us – as policymakers, industry actors, scholars, citizens, and consumers – to acknowledge not only medical tourism's imbrication in a broader range of transnational care pursuits and provision but also medical tourism's articulation in a broader (and increasingly global) political economy of health care. This would allow us to start asking more astute questions about the ways in which different stakeholders conceptualize ‘medical tourism’ and to begin to measure variables that enable analyses that transcend disembodied claims about growth ( 31 ).

This also requires us to acknowledge that medical facilities and the diverse communities in which they are inserted receive different volumes and types of foreign patients that may or may not be ‘medical tourists’, with their own unique needs, wants, socioeconomic and political statuses, and spending patterns. To better respond to this de facto diversity, the knowledge we produce about medical tourism must be useful to identify, plan for, and develop resources appropriate to the needs, demands, and interests of not only medical tourists and big business but also local populaces.

Acknowledgements

The publication of this paper is funded by HealthScape.Asia with the support from the Rockefeller Foundation and Thailand Research Center for Health Service System (TRC-HS). The authors would like to thank the internal reviewers of HealthSpace.Asia and all the anonymous reviewers in Global Health Action for their constructive inputs in the revision of the paper.

1 The current exchange rate is USD 1=MYR 3.2.

2 Currently, however, non-government-linked companies (e.g. Island Hospital and Penang Adventist Hospital) attract the lion's share of medical tourism to Malaysia.

Conflict of interest and funding

The authors have not received any funding or benefits from industry or elsewhere to conduct this study.

Medical tourism in Malaysia

Statistics report on medical tourism in Malaysia

This statistics report presents facts and figures on the medical tourism industry in Malaysia. It provides an overview data with key performance indicators of the state of healthcare tourism in the country. This report also covers healthcare infrastructure and workers in Malaysia, medical costs, as well as leading industry players.

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Table of contents.

• Basic Statistic Ranking of health and health systems of countries worldwide in 2023
• Premium Statistic Health index scores APAC 2023, by country
• Premium Statistic Total health expenditure per capita SEA 2020, by country
• Premium Statistic Government operating expenditure on healthcare in Malaysia 2020-2024
• Premium Statistic Tourist arrivals to Malaysia 2014-2023

Key indicators

• Basic Statistic Revenue from medical tourism Malaysia 2013-2022
• Premium Statistic Revenue of medical tourism in Penang, Malaysia 2021-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of medical tourists to Malaysia 2013-2022
• Premium Statistic Tourist expenditure for medical purposes Malaysia 2015-2022
• Premium Statistic Share of tourist expenditure for medical purposes Malaysia 2016-2022

Healthcare infrastructure

• Basic Statistic Number of public and private hospitals in Malaysia 2017-2022
• Basic Statistic Number of beds in public and private hospitals in Malaysia 2017-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of private hospitals in Malaysia 2022, by state
• Premium Statistic Leading hospitals in Malaysia 2024, by quality
• Premium Statistic Number of private medical clinics Malaysia 2015-2022

Healthcare workers

• Premium Statistic Number of registered doctors Malaysia 2015-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of registered dentists Malaysia 2015-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of registered nurses Malaysia 2016-2022

Medical costs

• Premium Statistic Estimated costs of medical treatments in private hospitals in Malaysia 2023, by type
• Premium Statistic Estimated costs of diagnostic services in private hospitals in Malaysia 2023, by type
• Premium Statistic Cost of medical service for foreign patients at public hospitals in Malaysia 2024
• Premium Statistic Heart surgery cost for foreign patients at public hospitals in Malaysia 2024, by type

Leading companies

• Premium Statistic Revenue of IHH Healthcare Bhd in Malaysia FY 2018-2023
• Premium Statistic Number of hospitals of IHH Healthcare Bhd in Malaysia FY 2018-2023
• Premium Statistic Revenue of KPJ Healthcare Bhd FY 2018-2022
• Premium Statistic Number of hospitals of KPJ Healthcare Bhd in Malaysia FY 2018-2022
• Premium Statistic Revenue of Sunway Healthcare Holdings Sdn Bhd 2021-2023
• Premium Statistic Number of hospitals owned by Sunway Healthcare Holdings Sdn Bhd 2019-2022

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10 Reasons Why Malaysia Is The Best For Medical Tourism

In recent years, malaysia has been voted the best destination for medical tourism. here are 10 reasons why medical tourists choose malaysia for care and recovery..

by Calvyn Ee

Make Home Care Personal To Your Loved One

Malaysia is well known as a popular tourist destination for its natural, cultural and historical destinations, but did you know Malaysia is also recognised as a fledgling hub for medical tourism? If the term “medical tourism” makes you think of international tourists taking a guided tour of our local and private hospitals, you might want to know that that is not the case at all. In fact, medical tourism actually refers to travellers from abroad who come to Malaysia to receive medical treatment.

The government has taken numerous steps to make Malaysia a reputable choice for medical travellers, chief among these being the inception of the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) in 2005. The MHTC is an agency under the Ministry of Health (MoH) tasked to “facilitate and promote the healthcare travel industry of Malaysia by coordinating industry collaborations and building valuable public-private partnerships, at home and abroad.” Through their efforts and initiatives, Malaysia seeks to establish itself as a leading medical destination for medical travellers from all over the world. The country’s efforts were even recognised numerous times, including its win of the “ Health and Medical Tourism: Destination of the Year ” title at the 2020 International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) Medical Travel Awards.

In its bid to achieve this goal, the MHTC recently unveiled the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Blueprint 2021-2025 , with its aspiration to achieve RM1.7 billion in healthcare travel revenue by 2025. Its key strategies will focus on strengthening Malaysia’s reputation as a quality healthcare destination, by improving the quality of medical care given; moving towards digitisation of medical processes; and continuing the provision of affordable healthcare.

With the country now entering the endemic phase, Malaysia’s medical tourism is set to see a much-needed revival . With 1.22 million medical travellers in 2019 alone, and having some of the lowest healthcare costs in the world , Malaysia looks set to welcome a much higher number from 2022 onwards.

Pioneering Medical Advances

Part of the reason why Malaysia is such a popular medical tourism destination is that it constantly keeps up with the newest breakthroughs in medical technology. One such example is the National Heart Institute’s (IJN) successful implantation of the Micra AV pacemaker , used to treat irregular heartbeats, in 2020. IJN would be the first hospital outside of the United States to perform this surgical procedure. The small size of the pacemaker makes it easy to implant it without requiring significant open surgery, requiring only a minimally invasive procedure in a much shorter time, and with far fewer complications in the long term.

Malaysia is also one of a few countries that is taking concrete steps to consolidate both modern and traditional medical practices as part of the healthcare industry. The Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM) Act 2016 is one such move to better incorporate traditional and complementary medicine in the country by establishing legislation, policies and guidelines on T&CM. This helps T&CM to provide high standards of quality care, ensures practitioners are properly registered and trained and helps contribute its growing influence to medical tourists seeking safe, alternative methods to treat their illnesses.

Strategic Location

Historically, Malaysia has always been recognised as a strategic location for many things, most notably maritime shipping. Malaysia’s tourism has grown significantly since the first Visit Malaysia Year campaign in the 1990s, and part of that success stems from its location on the planet.

Of particular note is Malaysia’s location close to the Equatorial line, giving its characteristic warm climate with occasional rainfall, further characterised by seasonal monsoon periods throughout the year. As such, Malaysia’s climate has led to vast rainforests full of diverse flora and fauna species, beautiful beaches along its coasts, and a variety of islands with equally beautiful sights and sounds. The natural diversity and sunny weather all year long (with the occasional bout of rain) is what attracts many tourists, especially those from colder climates, or whose four seasons include cold winters.

Malaysia can also be viewed as a gateway to Asia itself, with its location bordering many Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, while also still accessible to travellers from other Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and China.

Affordability

The biggest draw besides Malaysia’s growing medical expertise is the relative cost compared to that other countries’ medical costs. Specifically, Western medical tourists choose Malaysia as their destination of choice because it would save them thousands in their own currency to have medical procedures done in Malaysia than in their home country. At the time of writing, one US Dollar is equal to RM4.35.

This is a huge draw for international tourists, as it means they can afford top of the line medical treatments without having to break the bank. Some procedures – such as cosmetic surgery – maybe half the amount of what someone might have to pay in a Western country. For example, a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery may cost as much as USD77,000 in the United States. In Malaysia, the cost for the same surgical treatment method is approximately USD16,000 after conversion.

Not only do they save a significant sum for equally excellent treatment procedures at a fraction of the cost, but they will also still have enough funds on the side to enjoy a vacation in the country. There are even collaborations between hotels and hospitals, where the hotels offer customised stay packages that are touted as “post-treatment friendly” while providing accessibility, excellent service, and other benefits that can be enjoyed at the hotel or the hospital.

Internationally Recognised Hospitals

As part of efforts to deliver the best healthcare to citizens and medical tourists, a number of hospitals and other healthcare providers in Malaysia have pursued and attained accreditation from international healthcare bodies. These include accreditation from the Joint Commission International , an independent, not-for-profit organisation that advocates rigorous standards of healthcare and improves healthcare performance and outcomes; and the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee’s (RTAC) International Code of Practice for the delivery of safe fertility treatments.

Earning these accreditations requires rigorous implementation of quality care delivery every step of the way, and ensuring that these high standards are maintained at all times. They are not simply a means to boost a hospital’s popularity or prestige, but instead demonstrate the importance of prioritising excellent healthcare outcomes without sacrificing healthcare quality. They also promote strong accountability on part of the accredited hospitals, as they constantly strive to meet the highest healthcare standards of treatment at all times.

The combination of international accreditation, bolstered by the medical industry’s high-quality services provided, has enabled a number of our hospitals to achieve international recognition, winning prestigious awards that serve to boost our country’s desire to become a renowned medical hub. Among the accolades won include “2019 Medical Tourism Hospital of the Year in the Asia Pacific” for Sunway Medical Centre; “2019 Hospital of the Year Malaysia” for both Prince Court Medical Centre and Subang Jaya Medical Centre; and “2019 Cardiology Service Provider of the Year” going to IJN.

A Leader in Medical Research

With a long history of medical research that has flourished since the 1900s, Malaysia continues to play its part and has conducted a total of 215 new clinical types of research that were initiated in 2021. This has put Malaysia on par with other regional partners like Singapore and is viewed as a positive sign of putting Malaysia on track as a leading global medical hub.

Clinical trials in the country are overseen and supported by various organisations such as the MoH, the National Committee for Clinical Research (NCCR), and Clinical Research Malaysia. The NCCR’s role is to “establish policies and plan clinical trial activities for the short, medium and long-term in Malaysia” by finding ways to strengthen medical infrastructure and promote good clinical and laboratory practices.

Clinical Research Malaysia, established by the MoH in 2012, supports clinical research through training related to clinical research, communicating with the public and industry players on clinical research programs, and helping to consult, manage, and review aspects of clinical research to ensure all regulations and best practices are met from start to finish. Through the combined efforts of these organisations, clinical research participation has increased significantly through the years, further bolstering Malaysia’s position as a growing medical hub for conventional treatments and the research of new methods that can help deliver better quality healthcare for everyone.

Malaysia takes clinical research very seriously and has various systems in place to ensure all medical research that takes place meets the highest standards. One such system is the National Medical Research Register , a web-based system that “streamlines the application, review and approval process to conduct research in the MOH.” This helps the government and relevant organisations to keep track of ongoing medical research in Malaysia, and to review their methodology and ethical concerns before their approval.

Great Hospitality

Much as Malaysia is well known for its beautiful natural sights and rich cultural history, Malaysians are well praised for the polite and highly personalised service they provide to visitors from all over the world. This has translated very well in the healthcare industry, with nurses and doctors providing outstanding service with every step of the way. They treat their charges with professional, but genuine, interest, easily winning over medical travellers with their kindness and careful assistance. It is an oft-cited quality among medical travellers which encourages them to return in the future.

Part of this excellence comes from a desire to provide personalised care for each person undergoing treatment or recovering from it. This translates not only to the diagnosis and treatment they can or will receive, but to the service they receive while warded, or when waiting for the test results. Nurses and doctors pay close attention to the needs of those under their care, offering help where needed, making special arrangements that benefit their care recipients, and going the distance whenever they can.

Excellent Healthcare Quality

Malaysian healthcare also prioritises patient convenience, offering same-day results for health screenings and other checks, while top tier facilities and amenities are provided while waiting for the results. This grants medical travellers sufficient comfort while they wait, and gives them various activities to do in between. They can even venture out to explore nearby attractions before returning in time to find out what is next for their healthcare plan.

Keeping up with medical breakthroughs allows for newer surgical treatments that are less invasive and have a faster recovery time than open surgeries. The Micra AV pacemaker is just one of many such procedures, handled with precision and timely post-surgery care. In fact, Subang Jaya Medical Centre performed the country’s first daycare total knee replacement in late 2021, a success that comes from over two decades of improvements and adaptations to greatly enhance healthcare outcomes and reduce the risk of complications. Malaysia takes great pains to drive the medical industry forwards, and its track record continues to prove the country’s ability to deliver.

Accessibility is another key to Malaysia’s great track record. Various channels exist to help ease the flow of medical tourists and prevent long waiting times for treatments. Thanks to these effective channels, it can be effortless for someone to engage and almost immediately make an appointment with a doctor in Malaysia, instead of being relegated to a very long waiting list elsewhere in the world. One interesting caveat is that Malaysia has seen an influx of medical tourists from Thailand and Singapore, as both these countries are having difficulty in managing the influx of medical tourists.

Highly Trained Medical Professionals

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals working in Malaysia are all highly-trained individuals, many of which have credentials from foreign universities and institutions. Whether they operate from a small-town clinic, or work in one of the many prestigious hospitals around the country, Malaysia’s medical professionals have the necessary credentials to help medical tourists with their healthcare-related concerns without compromising on confidentiality, comfort, convenience and confidence. Moreover, medical specialists covering a wide variety of fields can be found in a majority of healthcare institutions around the country.

As part of efforts to strengthen the medical industry and safeguard patients as well as doctors, entities such as the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) and the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) exist to make sure that the healthcare given to care recipients is of the highest quality without any compromise, and that all healthcare professionals are to be registered with the government, must maintain ethical standards set by the government (and as per the Hippocratic Oath ), and consistently improve their practice through continuous learning and research.

Halal-Certified Medications and Treatments

Halal pharmaceuticals and medical treatments are becoming more and more prevalent in recent years, especially in Muslim majority countries like Malaysia. This has helped to draw in Muslim medical tourists from places such as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. There have also been formal agreements with Kazakhstan, Libya and Oman to send their medical tourists to Malaysia, as part of efforts to bolster our country’s medical tourism sector.

The offering of new halal-certified, or Shariah-compliant, medications and treatments is a rapidly expanding field in Malaysia, with the need to cater to Muslims looking for such products and services. In a bid to meet these growing needs, the “ MS2424: 2012 Halal Pharmaceuticals – General Guidelines ” was developed and implemented in 2012, becoming the world’s first Halal pharmaceutical standard. The standard was devised as a way to effectively address the complexities of the pharmaceutical industry while ensuring the safety, quality and efficacy of certified medications and treatments. This is in tandem with the recent introduction of the MS2636 standard for halal medical devices, further widening the net for Muslim-friendly medical tourism in Malaysia.

Malaysia has also created halal-certified medical products of its own, including the GranuMas synthetic bone graft. GranuMas is also internationally recognised, earning accreditation by the British Standard Institution and enabling its sales in the European market. The MoH has also implemented guidelines for the use of non-halal medications or treatments for Muslims, making sure that Muslim medical travellers are aware of the medications and procedures that are used in the event that they may not be halal-certified.

A Wonderful Tourist Destination

Medical tourists may come to Malaysia for its top-notch and affordable healthcare, but they will also find themselves staying a while longer for its rich diversity as a tourist destination. Whether it is sandy beaches, beautiful hill views, majestic cave formations, or even a stroll through the historical parts of a city, Malaysia has a lot to offer travellers and a wide variety of tastes. Medical tourism packages offer stays at the finest hotels that are well within the range of a premier hospital and nearby sightseeing attractions, leaving medical travellers spoiled for choice. Coupled with the relatively low cost of goods for most foreign tourists, there is a lot that they can do to pass the time – shopping, street food hunting, beach picnics, nature treks, and more!

Medical Tourism in Malaysia

If you’re travelling to Malaysia for medical tourism , you can connect with Homage for assistance via email at [email protected] .

You can also get in touch with the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) to help you find a healthcare provider:

+603 2726 8688 (Call Centre) 1-800-188-688 (Toll Free – inside Malaysia) [email protected] malaysiahealthcare.org

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Park, J.-E., Yi, J., & Kwon, O. (2022). Twenty years of traditional and complementary medicine regulation and its impact in Malaysia: Achievements and Policy Lessons. BMC Health Services Research , 22 (1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-07497-2  

Perimbanayagam, K. & Teh Athira Yusof. (2022). Malaysia now a major regional player in medical clinical research . Retrieved 19th April, 2022 from https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2022/03/781881/malaysia-now-major-regional-player-medical-clinical-research-nsttv#:~:text=PUTRAJAYA%3A%20Malaysia%20conducted%20the%20most,in%20the%20region%20after%20Singapore  

Prince Court Medical Centre. (n.d.). Medical Tourism . Retrieved 15th April, 2022 from https://princecourt.com/medical-tourism/  

Sakolnakorn, T. P. N. (2020). Important Factors and Policies That Contributed to Tourism in Malaysia Between 1991 and 2018. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 14 (12), 969–980. Retrieved 25th April, 2022 from https://www.ijicc.net/images/Vol_14/Iss_12/15210_Sakolnakorn_2020_E1_R.pdf  

Selangor.travel. (2022). SELANGOR IS ONE OF THE LEADING MEDICAL TOURISM DESTINATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA . Retrieved 19th April, 2022 from https://selangor.travel/selangor-is-one-of-the-leading-medical-tourism-destinations-in-southeast-asia/  

Teh, A. L. S. (2021). Malaya led the way in medical research . Retrieved 25th April, 2022 from https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2021/06/699154/malaya-led-way-medical-research  

The Edge Markets. (). Johor returns as medical tourism destination after international borders reopen . Retrieved 20th April, 2022 from https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/johor-returns-medical-tourism-destination-after-international-borders-reopen  

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Malaysia’s medical tourism sector seeing signs of growth

14 Oct 2020

Since the start of this year, Hemakumari Sugayindran’s main mission was to ensure the smooth implementation of plans to harness the potential of healthcare tourism.

The senior executive of International Patient Centre (IPC) at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur (PHKL) and her team were committed to positioning PHKL as the hospital of choice among foreigners seeking medical care in various fields.

PHKL had been expecting a rise in healthcare visitor arrivals this year as the government had initially promoted 2020 as Malaysia Year of Healthcare Travel, alongside Visit Malaysia Year 2020.

However, the COVID-19 outbreak threw a spanner in the works, resulting in downturns in many industries and business sectors, including healthcare tourism, in Malaysia and globally.

Hemakumari said PHKL’s healthcare tourism business has seen rapid growth over the years and in February this year it opened the IPC, a special unit dedicated to providing top quality services to international patients.

“The IPC is not only designated to handle the needs of our healthcare tourists but is also spacious and located on the ground floor, thus facilitating registration and consultation processes,” she told Bernama.

ENCOURAGING SIGNS OF GROWTH

Hemakumari said IPC was set up in anticipation of a hike in the admission of international patients this year.

Although the ongoing pandemic has to a certain extent impacted the hospital’s healthcare tourism sector, the situation, nevertheless, did not dampen their spirit and the hospital continues to provide its best healthcare services to its international patients, who are mainly cancer patients from Indonesia.

They were admitted to PHKL before the Movement Control Order was imposed in March and were reluctant to return to their homeland as they are worried that they may not be able to return to Malaysia for follow-up treatments as long as the country’s international borders remain closed.

Malaysia’s healthcare tourism industry showed some encouraging signs of growth after the government opened its borders in phases to international patients, beginning July 1 after the Recovery Movement Control Order set in.

“During the (initial phase of) MCO, we didn’t get many calls from international patients as our borders were closed. But after our government announced that the borders will be reopened for healthcare travellers, IPC was inundated with calls.

“Most of the callers were new patients who wished to know how to go about seeking treatment and enquired about our oncology, paediatric, cardiology, neurosurgery, orthopaedic and gastroenterology treatments,” Hemakumari said.

Although Malaysia’s borders are open to foreigners seeking medical care in Malaysia, only critically ill patients and those in need of urgent medical attention with serious health issues such as cancer, and neurosurgery and paediatric cases are allowed entry. The patients must have a supporting letter from the hospital, which has to be a member of the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC).

Approval for the patients to enter Malaysia is also subject to compliance with stringent standard operating procedures (SOPs) such as screening for COVID-19, securing the green light from the Immigration Department and travelling to Malaysia by air ambulance, personal jet or chartered flight in order to stem COVID-19 transmissions.

Hemakumari said even though the government has reopened its borders for international patients, PHKL is not in a rush to admit them as the safety of the Malaysian public and its doctors and staff is its top priority.

“We at IPC will first seek the approval from the treating doctor concerned whether he or she is willing to accept and treat the international patient based on the medical reports from their country of origin,” she said.

Interestingly, from their recent telephone conversations with potential international patients, it was clear that many of them did not view the pandemic as a deterrent to seeking treatment in Malaysia, she said.

“The callers didn’t ask if our hospital has any COVID-19 case or how the situation was in Malaysia. They just wanted to know how to seek treatment,” she said.

They are obviously not worried about the current spike in COVID-19 cases in Malaysia and are confident that the health authorities are capable of flattening the infection curve once again.

Last month, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was quoted by the media as saying that Malaysia has been recognised by the World Health Organisation for its strong health system and universal health coverage amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

And last month, Malaysia’s healthcare tourism sector received another feather in its cap when it won the Health and Medical Tourism: Destination of the Year title for the fourth time at the International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) Medical Travel Awards 2020 ceremony in London.

DIGITAL APPROACH

Besides PHKL, international patient arrivals at other private hospitals in Malaysia and in the region have also seen a downward trend this year.

Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok was affected by the plunge in medical tourists travelling to Thailand as more than 50 percent of its patients came from overseas.

Like PHKL and many other hospitals worldwide, Bumrungrad International Hospital has also activated its online teleconsultation services.

PHKL emergency department senior medical officer Dr Mohd Ridzuan Abdul Razak said the teleconsultation services allow the hospital’s international patients to be remotely monitored by their doctors.

“This service is only offered to existing patients whose medical records are with PHKL. Teleconsultation is not offered to new patients as we don’t know what their health record is like.

“As for patients who need treatment like physiotherapy, it’s best that they see a doctor in their country. We will email their medical reports and discuss their progress and treatment they underwent previously with their doctor,” he said.

PHKL also offers postal delivery services for medicines required by their foreign patients who sought treatment at the hospital previously. However, the delivery service would depend on the drugs’ resistance and where the patient lives.

SECTOR WILL RECOVER

MHTC chief executive officer Sherene Azli, meanwhile, acknowledged the pandemic has hit the healthcare tourism sector hard and expected the market to decline in 2020 and 2021.

Nevertheless, MHTC is prepared to address any disruption in the inflow of medical tourists by continuously engaging with the government and industry leaders from public and private sectors to upgrade existing SOPs so that they fulfil the needs of the current situation.

The negative economic impact of the pandemic has forced MHTC to slash its 2020 medical tourism revenue target by 70 percent to RM500 million from the original projection of RM2 billion.

“Based on Malaysia’s excellent response to stemming the COVID-19 pandemic (based on its previous experience), the nation has been able to implement a healthcare travel bubble and resume medical tourism activities.

“It is carried out in ways that are safe for the patients entering the country while also taking into account the factor of national security. Stringent SOPs have also enabled our economy to recover gradually,” said Sherene.

She said although they have projected a decline in the healthcare tourism market in 2020 and 2021, MHTC has taken proactive measures to maintain its ties with its partners and stakeholders through webinars and discussions.

“Through these steps, we hope to focus on efforts to drive this industry’s sustainable growth so that Malaysia continues to be known as the ‘World’s Healthcare Marvel’,” she added.

Malaysia has successfully positioned itself as the destination of choice for international patients seeking treatment in the fields of cardiology, fertility, orthopaedics, urology, dentistry, cosmetic surgery and others.

Last year, its healthcare tourism sector generated revenue of RM1.7 billion from 1.3 million medical tourist arrivals from various countries.

“About 60 percent of our medical tourists are from Indonesia while the rest are from Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, Brunei and other countries,” she added.

Source: Bernama Posted on : 14 October 2020

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Medical Tourism in Malaysia: Prospect and Challenges

Affiliation.

• 1 Dept. of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• PMID: 26056632
• PMCID: PMC4441909

Background: Tourism, combined with the phrase medical, seems to be a new form of tourism which has gained huge popularity in recent decades. Though, a number of literatures available with regard to the tourism industry and the competitiveness of the destination, however, the major aspects which determine the satisfaction of medical tourists are hardly focused specifically on Malaysia. There is a lack of empirical evidence in this area of study which needs to be bridged. Hence, this study aimed at investigating the various factors contributing towards the development of medical tourism in Malaysia.

Methods: As the purpose of the research was to find out various factors contributing towards the development of medical tourism in Malaysia, so this study used Structural Equation modeling (SEM) for data analysis. The target population for this study consisted of the medical tourists coming to Malaysia with the primary intension of seeking medical procedures other than sightseeing. A total sample size of 266 was collected through non-probability judgment sampling during the period between December 2012 and February 2013.

Results: The result confirms that destination competitiveness and service quality play an important role in the medical tourist's mind towards medical tourism aspect in Malaysia. Thus, Malaysia need to promote various medical success stories together with the services they offer to attract more foreign patients.

Conclusion: This study contributes to the theoretical development in the tourism industry by offering the structured relationship among various aspects contributing towards the development of medical tourism in Malaysia.

Keywords: Customer service; Destination competitiveness; Medical tourism; Service quality.

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Enhanced efforts needed to revitalise tourism sector

Wednesday, 26 Jun 2024

Related News

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TA Research said despite the recovery in tourist numbers in the first quarter of 2023, Malaysia still appears to lag behind several South-East Asian countries.

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian government and its related agencies need to intensify efforts to restore the country’s tourism to pre-pandemic levels.

According to TA Research, despite the recovery in tourist numbers in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q23), Malaysia still appears to lag behind several South-East Asian countries.

The brokerage noted that Vietnam, for one, recorded tremendous growth of 72% year-on-year (y-o-y) in tourist arrivals to 4.6 million in 1Q24, with the number surpassing its pre-pandemic levels, while Thailand and Singapore saw their 1Q24 tourist arrivals grow 43.5% y-o-y to 9.4 million and 49.6% y-o-y to 4.4 million, respectively.

As for Malaysia, tourist arrivals rose 32.5% y-o-y to 5.8 million in 1Q24, data from the Statistics Department revealed.

“The 5.8 million arrivals in 1Q24 may not be as rosy as we thought.

“It is still down by 13.2% as compared to the first quarter of 2019 (pre-pandemic level).

“Furthermore, it is lower than the 6.82 million quarterly arrivals needed to achieve the full year target,” TA Research argued.

While the brokerage acknowledged the government had already taken several commendable strategies to boost tourism, much work is still needed for Malaysia to meet its target of 27.3 million international arrivals for 2024, with tourism receipts of RM102.7bil.

“While achieving these goals may be challenging, success is possible if we strengthen our efforts,” it added.

Among the initiatives the brokerage recommended are to enhance marketing and promotion efforts, improve infrastructure and connectivity, simplify visa policies, promote sustainable and eco-friendly tourism, leverage technology and innovation, enhance safety and security and support cultural and event tourism.

For marketing and promotions, TA Research said the focus should be on key markets such as China, India, Europe and Asean.

Customised marketing campaigns that highlight Malaysia’s unique attractions and cultural diversity should be introduced..

“Invest in digital marketing strategies, including social media, online advertising and influencer partnerships to reach a broader audience, particularly younger travellers and digital nomads.

“Also, partner with international travel agencies, airlines and online travel platforms to promote Malaysia more effectively and create attractive travel packages,” it said.

It added Malaysia should expand and improve air connectivity by increasing flight frequencies, establishing new routes and collaborating with international airlines to make the country more accessible to global tourists.

This can be done while enhancing the transportation infrastructure within the country.

Also, TA Research said the government should further liberalise visa policies, simplify and streamline the application process and reduce bureaucratic hurdles to make travel to Malaysia easier.

“Economically, the significance of tourism cannot be overstated.

“This sector serves as a catalyst for job creation, bolstering opportunities across various industries and amplifying the performance of small and medium enterprises,” it said.

Specifically, TA Research highlighted several sectors that would benefit from the tourism boom. These included aviation, construction, consumer, healthcare and property.

As for construction, it noted: “With a stronger influx of tourists anticipated this year, this will indirectly stimulate the construction activities as the existing facilities at customs and airports will require refurbishment and upgrades to accommodate the increased flow.”

“Complementing this, we foresee an escalating demand for local infrastructure to enhance the transit route map.

“This includes a more comprehensive public transport expansion and improved customs check-in facilities.

“As a result, we anticipate an increased incentive to expedite the finalisation of the Johor Automated Rapid Transit project and upgrade the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore border customs facility,” TA Research said.

It said the arrival of tourists would also result in higher spending, benefiting local retailers as well as brewery companies.

Citing the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council’s 2024 revenue target of RM2.4bil from health tourism, TA Research said this would likely be achieved through higher revenue intensity per patient due to healthcare inflation, gaining market share from Singapore, private hospitals’ active participation in Healthcare Expo (especially in Indonesia) and visa-free entry to China and India tourists.

Meanwhile, TA Research noted that the improved version of the Malaysia My Second Home programme could drive demand for homes, revitalising the country’s property sector, while retail and hospitality related real estate investment trusts would benefit from improved rates on improved tourism activities.

Tags / Keywords: TourismBoost , MalaysiaTravel , EconomicGrowth , TravelRecovery , InternationalArrivals , TourismMarketing , TravelInfrastructure , HospitalityGrowth

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Telecom and pay-tv services revenue in malaysia to increase at 1.9% cagr over 2023-2028, forecasts globaldata, media enquiries.

If you are a member of the press of media and require any further information, please get in touch, as we're very happy to help.

27 Jun, 2024 Telecom and pay-TV services revenue in Malaysia to increase at 1.9% CAGR over 2023-2028, forecasts GlobalData

The total telecom and pay-TV services revenue in Malaysia is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.9%, from $7.7 billion in 2023 to $8.5 billion in 2028, supported by mobile data and fixed broadband service segments, according to GlobalData , a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s Malaysia Telecom Operators Country Intelligence Report states that the mobile voice service revenue will decline over the forecast period in line with the steady decline in mobile voice service ARPU, with users increasingly shifting to OTT-based communication apps.

Mobile data service revenue, on the other hand, will continue to grow driven by increasing data consumption over wireless networks aided by the widespread availability of data-centric plans offered by operators, and rising adoption of higher ARPU 5G service plans.

“5G subscriptions will increase at a rapid pace and surpass 4G in 2026, driven by network expansion initiatives by the government and operators. For instance, the government of Malaysia plans to expand 5G coverage to about 85% of the rural population across the country by 2024-end.”

Fixed broadband service revenue will increase from $1.3 billion in 2023 to $1.7 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 4.5%, driven by growth in the adoption of higher-ARPU fiber services and growth in fixed wireless subscriptions. Fixed voice service revenue, on the other hand, will decline to $276 million in 2028, due to continued losses in circuit-switched subscriptions and declining voice ARPU levels.

Vaidya adds: “Growing demand for high-speed broadband connectivity and government and operators’ focus on fiber-optic network expansion in the country will support growth of fiber broadband subscriptions over the forecast period. For instance, in December 2023, Maxis extended its partnership with Telekom Malaysia (TM) to access high-speed broadband services (HSBB) until 2029. TM’s HSBB services complements Maxis’ own-built fiber network and allows the latter to offer competitive broadband plans and expand its reach in Malaysia.”

Pay-TV service segment will see a steady decline in subscriptions over the forecast period, due to subscription losses in the DTH and IPTV segments as a result of growing adoption of OTT video alternatives.

Vaidya concludes: “ CelcomDig i led the mobile market segment in Malaysia, by subscription share in 2023. It will retain its leadership in the mobile services segment, supported by its strong focus on 5G and 4G LTE network expansions and wide ranging prepaid and postpaid plans serving diverse needs of its customers. In the fixed broadband segment, Telekom Malaysia led the market, supported by its strong network infrastructure, with a robust presence in fiber optic and DSL technologies.”

If you are a member of the press or media and require any further information, please get in touch, as we're very happy to help.

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