(ECNS) -- The number of Chinese tourists going abroad for medical care in 2016 has increased five times over a year ago, with each spending 50,000 yuan ($7,200) on average, according to a report released by online travel company Ctrip.com.
Ctrip offers more than 300 medical tourism products in cooperation with 80 travel agencies.
Its statistics show that medical care services ranked fourth among the top 10 choices of Chinese travelers, following nature discovery, cross-country driving and skiing.
More than half of these popular medical tourism trips are health checks, including early detection of possible cancers.
Among wealthy Chinese tourists, many added plastic surgery in South Korea, health checks in Japan or gene tests in the United States to their itineraries.
Three tourists, all born in the 1970s, paid a total of 162,000 yuan for a five-day trip to Japan in December to receive physical checkups against cancer.
The report also showed that the top 10 destinations for medical care are Japan, South Korea, the United States, Taiwan, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland, Thailand and India.
Residents of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Shenzhen comprised the largest part of tourists seeking overseas medical care.
James Liang, founder of Ctrip, said the medical tourism market has big potential.
