Attracting International Patients Before and After the Pandemic, Through the Lens of Crossing the Chasm

In 2009, when I had just started attracting international patients, it was easier than it is now to introduce Korean medical services to foreigners and get customers to choose them. K-culture, including Korean dramas, and K-beauty were growing popular in Greater China. At the time, my background as a former traditional Chinese medicine doctor in China also worked in my favor as a broker. That is how I ran my facilitation business without much trouble for about ten years.

The number of international patients, counted as unique individuals, grew from about 60,000 in 2009 to about 500,000 in 2019. After the pandemic, it expanded to about 610,000 in 2023, about 1.17 million in 2024, and about 2.01 million in 2025. The number of international patients coming to Korea has clearly grown beyond comparison with when I first started.

After the pandemic, customers increased, and the market grew, but the business got harder. International patients no longer decide based only on the information that international patient brokers like us provide. Nor do they unconditionally favor Korean medical services as they used to. Customers now arrive having already done a lot of research, so I feel the value I can add by simply introducing hospitals has shrunk.

This market is clearly different now from the one I experienced in the past. How should I understand this changed market?

Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm explains how an innovative technology that requires people to change how they already do things moves from the early market to the mainstream market. In particular, Moore saw that the reasons for buying change sharply between early adopters and the early majority. Even if you have earned good reviews from earlier customers, you have to build new grounds to persuade the next ones.

• Innovators: explore new possibilities first
  • These people actively seek out new information and adopt it first. The customers Moore calls technology enthusiasts care a great deal about how the technology itself works and what it makes possible. They take an early interest even in options that are not yet widely known.
• Early adopters: look at the change a new choice will bring
  • These people follow the innovators and adopt earlier than others. They focus less on curiosity about the technology itself and more on the change it will bring.
• Early majority: check whether it is worth using in their own situation
  • They adopt a little earlier than average, but only after careful review. They are what Moore calls pragmatists. They do not choose something just because it is new. They want to confirm whether customers like them have used it, whether it actually solved the problem, and whether the cost and the process are manageable.
• Late majority: move once it is widely used, and the conditions for using it are in place
  • These customers adopt later than average. How widespread it is around them, along with social and economic needs, shapes their choice. Moore describes them as conservative customers who hold on to existing ways for a long time. Beyond validation by earlier customers, they value procedures and support that make it easy to use, and a cost they can accept.
• Laggards: put familiar ways and experience first
  • These are the people who adopt the innovation last. They base their judgment on existing ways and experience. In Moore’s account, they are customers who are skeptical of the benefits a new technology promises. The term does not simply mean older people or those with less buying power.

In attracting international patients, I think about these categories in terms of “the choice to use medical services in Korea.” But not everyone who uses Korean medical care for the first time becomes an early adopter. Some may make their first visit after seeing that it is already widely used around them. Nor do I use “early adopter” to mean someone who accepts unproven treatment.

What matters is that early customers and mainstream customers choose for different reasons. When I apply this to my own experience, I think I can understand the customers from Greater China I met from 2009 until the pandemic as part of the early customer group that took an interest in Korean medical care as an option before others. It was a time when, with my background and the interest in Korean culture, it was easy to introduce services and be chosen. I see the change since the pandemic as the international patient attraction market moving from a stage centered on early customers to one where it must win mainstream customers.

The customers I meet have already done a lot of research on procedures before I explain anything. For me, when working with these customers, the early majority’s criteria are worth keeping in mind. Beyond saying Korean medical care is good, what matters is why that hospital is worth choosing for their situation. That means things like what care it provides, what they can check before visiting, and how people in similar circumstances have used it.

International patients differ in their reasons for visiting and their circumstances. Someone planning to see a doctor during a trip and someone preparing for a long treatment stay need different information and support. For me, too, it matters a great deal to understand customers’ choices and preparation first. Even as the market grows, not every consumer in it will become my customer.

What Moore calls the whole product is the core product, plus the services and support customers need to get what they want done. Applied to attracting international patients, it means not stopping at introducing hospitals and treatments, but looking at what else customers need to actually receive care.

Even customers who have done a lot of research may still have things that are hard to check on their own while preparing a booking or a visit. For the customers I want to understand first, I need to find out which of these they need: consultation, confirmation of details with the hospital, or support with booking and visits. Depending on the treatment and the customer’s situation, I may also need to look at how they can communicate with the hospital after they return home. The value I add can shift from passing on hospital information to checking the necessary conditions and connecting customers with what they need to receive the care they have chosen.

I am used to introducing Korean medical care and being chosen easily, but of course it is hard to understand today’s customers by that standard alone. Customers have changed, so I need to move beyond the old ways as soon as possible and find ways to help customers who arrive after thorough research.