10 - Medical Tourism in Penang: A Brief Review of the Sector

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Medical tourism is being developed as a priority area in the Malaysian tourism industry. Of all the cities and towns in the country offering medical services to visitors seeking treatment, Penang generates the most revenue, receiving around a third of the visitors who travel to Malaysia for this purpose. This chapter presents basic information available on medical tourism in Penang, and situates this information within the context of tourism in Malaysia and the region.

The discussion begins with a brief description of medical tourism in Malaysia and the region as a backdrop to the trends in Penang. The focus then narrows to a consideration of medical tourism in the state, looking first at the number of visitor patients in the state over the past few years and then at the revenues generated. Information on visitor patients' country of origin, the type of procedures that are commonly sought, and their preference for Penang is summarised. Following this, the efforts of the state and federal governments as well as the corporate sector in developing the medical tourism sector in Penang and Malaysia are discussed. The effect of medical tourism industry on the domestic population's access to quality healthcare is also highlighted. Finally, some policy recommendations are made based on the discussion on medical tourism in Penang.

The terms medical tourism and health tourism are often used interchangeably. However, the former is mostly used to describe the range of medical treatments that are necessary for diagnosing and treating illness, such as tests, surgical procedures and recovery treatment. In contrast, the term health tourism often includes wellness and wellbeing programmes along the lines of therapeutic treatments in spas. In this chapter, the discussion pertains to medical tourism unless otherwise specified.

MEDICAL TOURISM IN MALAYSIA AND THE REGION

In Southeast Asia, governments and hospitals in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand embarked on a marketing campaign to cater to the medical needs of visitors after the financial crisis of 1997 (with Singapore starting a little earlier).