About Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data
Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data is a public-interest information site that turns open data on tourism and medical tourism in Seoul into tables and charts anyone can read, and explains what each source can and cannot tell you. Its 9 data pages and 3 explainers are free in Korean and English.
Contents
What does this site do?
It makes open data on tourism and medical tourism in Seoul easier to read. The datasets on the Seoul Open Data Plaza are published as files, so it is hard to see at a glance how many places each district has or which nationalities are most common among patients. Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data counts those files by district, subway station and nationality, splits them into pages, and prints each figure with its reference point and its limits.
It currently covers two topics, Medical Tourism in Seoul and Sightseeing in Seoul. Points that only show up when several pages are read together are written up as Explainers. It does not recommend hospitals, give consultations, arrange treatment or carry advertising.
Where does the data come from?
From five datasets published on the Seoul Open Data Plaza, downloaded on 9 Oct 2026.
- Seoul: foreign patients by nationality, statistics (in Korean): 1,755,002 foreign patients in Seoul in 2025, by nationality. The statistics are compiled by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute.
- Seoul: medical institutions approved for medical tourism, English list (2015): a 1,494-row list from 2015, of which 1,491 have a Seoul address.
- Seoul tourist attractions (dataset, five languages): 506 Korean-language entries, updated monthly by the Seoul Tourism Organization.
- Seoul restaurants for visitors (dataset, five languages): 1,373 Korean-language entries.
- Seoul shopping places for visitors (dataset, five languages): 327 Korean-language entries.
The five sources have different reference points. Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data sets figures from different dates side by side but never divides or adds them.
What rules does the writing follow?
- Figures are printed as they appear in the source. Totals, shares and ranks that were calculated are labelled as calculated, with the formula.
- Where the sources are silent, the text says so. A grouping the source does not have, such as clinic specialties, comes with an account of how it was made and where it falls short.
- Clinics are not named. Hospitals and shops are not recommended or ranked.
- Names of tourist places are shown as written in the source and linked to their page on the official Seoul travel guide.
- No claims about effect or quality. A large number of clinics is not restated as better care or more patients.
When is the site updated?
The three tourism lists are updated monthly at the source, so the figures change when a new file is downloaded. Those shown now are from the files of 9 Oct 2026. The foreign patient statistics are published yearly. The clinic list was released once, for 2015, and is not updated.
Each page shows its publication date, its last update and the reference point of its data. When a figure is corrected, the update date changes with it.
Can you quote the figures?
Yes. All five datasets are released under Korea Open Government License, Type 1: attribution (in Korean), which allows reuse, including commercial use, with attribution. Please give the name and reference point of the source when you quote. For shares and ranks calculated by Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data, please credit Seoul Tourism and Medical Tourism Data as well.
Where do the photos come from?
The 3 photos on the home page are all pictures of real places uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). They were cropped and resized, with no color changes and no text added. Photos whose subject is a person, and generated images, are not used.
- Han River and Lotte World Tower, Seoul, 2018 · mauveine.kim · CC0 1.0
- Seocho District from the Han River, Seoul, 2023 · SpaceshipMe · CC0 1.0
- Seoul Plaza and Seoul City Hall, Seoul, 2018 · H. Y. Shin 000 · CC0 1.0
How can you get in touch?
If a figure differs from the source or an explanation is wrong, write to info@seoulmeditourinfo.org. Say which page and which figure, and it will be checked against the source and corrected. Requests for appointments or hospital introductions are not answered.