Malaysia teams up with budget airline to boost medical tourism earnings

It’s targeting Indonesian patients.

The Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) is looking to double the country’s medical tourism earnings through a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with AirAsia Indonesia.

The partnership aims to offer the best medical tourism service to Indonesian travelers and will promote Penang as Malaysia’s top healthcare destination.

“Penang receives around 60% of Malaysia’s healthcare travellers and in 2017 alone, the state’s healthcare travel industry generated half a billion ringgit in revenue. Among the medical fields that Penang is known for includes cardiology, orthopaedics, oncology, neurology, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), ophthalmology, and dentistry,” said MHTC CEO Sherene Azli.

Under the agreement, MHTC will offer services to arrange medical tourism trips including doctor and hospital appointments, as well as airport pick-up services, for those flying AirAsia from Indonesia to Penang for medical treatment.

AirAsia will provide exclusive flight discounts to MHTC customers, and AirAsia guests with pre-arranged appointments made through MHTC will also enjoy additional benefits at participating hospitals, including up to 20% discount on the medical check-up and non-medical bills, as well as in selected F&B outlets simply by showing their boarding pass.

“Initiatives as such will only increase the potential of the state to cater to more healthcare travellers from Indonesia who have discovered Penang to be their preferred destination for healthcare,” Sherene added.