Japan looks to bump up numbers of 'medical tourists' from China

BEIJING -- The Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) is looking to boost the number of medical tourists coming from China.

While medical tourism has been widely adopted in other Asian countries, bringing an increasing number of foreign tourists to such countries as South Korea, Thailand and Singapore, the JTA hopes to boost the number of medical tourists to Japan to 100 a year.

The agency set up a study panel on medical tourism targeting China's wealthy class last year and has been looking into ways to secure interpreters and responses to medical accidents. The agency is also planning to conduct a survey on Chinese tourists and medical institutions in Japan possibly later this month.

So far, about 30 Chinese have joined medical tours to Japan organized by Nippon Travel Agency Co. since the Tokyo-based company launched package tours in April last year, incorporating cancer-detecting PET (positron emission tomography) checks along with the usual sightseeing.

In the upcoming questionnaire, the agency will ask Chinese pollees about what medical field they would like to take examinations in, their preferred payment methods and what kind of tourism information they are interested in. The survey will also question Japanese medical institutions over whether they can provide care in foreign languages and how they will provide treatment information to their clients.

After analyzing the survey results, the agency hopes to better prepare for receiving Chinese medical tourists.

"I hope Japan will relax the conditions for individual Chinese travelers to Japan, so that not only those in Beijing or Shanghai but also more and more Chinese people can receive Japan's advanced medical care," said a representative of a Beijing-based travel agency that has been promoting medical tourism to Japan.