WELL on its way to achieving industry post-pandemic recovery, Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry recorded more than RM1.2 bil in healthcare traveller (HT) revenue in 2022.
Over the past year, Malaysian healthcare has achieved significant milestones such as the successful implementation of a medical travel bubble before the re-opening of borders, the launch of the industry blueprint, the re-establishment of medical e-visa, enhancement of touchpoints with digitalisation efforts, and further expansion of market reach.
Moving forward, the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC), a government agency under the Health Ministry (MOH) entrusted with the responsibility of curating the country’s healthcare travel scene, is expected to implement several key initiatives to catalyse further industry growth.
This includes the launch of a one-stop-portal for:
- Healthcare travel,
- Implementation of health facilitator training programme to equip international tour and travel agents with the essential knowledge and skills needed to become Malaysian healthcare agents abroad;
- Raising Malaysia’s first flagship medical tourism hospital; and
- Establishment of more strategic partnerships as well as driving advocacy for the Malaysia Healthcare brand.
“Recognising the media’s role in growing and shaping Malaysia’s reputation as a healthcare destination over the past year, we are pleased to announce the return of the Medical Travel Media Awards (MTMA) to celebrate contributions by the media through excellent journalism and storytelling in promoting Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry,” revealed MHTC’s CEO Mohd Daud Mohd Arif.
“As we move forward with our industry rebuilding efforts in 2023, we also look forward to work closely with the media and key industry players to promote Malaysia as a healthcare travel destination and facilitating a seamless end-to-end healthcare travel experience for international patients.”
Yielding positive results from its recovery efforts, the industry is on a solid foundation to embark on the rebuild phase of the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Blueprint 2021–2025 this year, according to Mohd Daud.
To this end, MHTC aims to empower media practitioners through MTMA to become one of the advocates of Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry as well as to proactively support MHTC’s efforts to expand its market reach.
The MTMA is marked as the first global media awards that laud the work and contributions of journalists, freelancers and influencers in sharing stories that promote medical travel in Malaysia.
Featuring 12 highly competitive categories for international and local categories, this year’s categories include: Best Print Medical Travel Report, Best Online Medical Travel Report, Best Broadcast Medical Travel Feature, Best Medical Travel Influencer, Best Medical Travel Journalist of the Year, and Best Medical Travel Editorial Team of the Year – each of the category includes subcategories of Malaysian and international media respectively. – Feb 9, 2023
