MAS promotes medical tourism

MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS) has started collaborating with local medical centres to offer medical tourism packages to the international community.MAS Holidays and TMC Life Sciences' Tropicana Medical Centre recently signed an agreement to offer a variety of packages including airfare, accommodation and health screenings.

MAS executive vice president of commercial strategy, Amin Khan, said: The international medical tourism market is fast-growing, with a lot of potential. As such, we decided to partner with hospitals as a strategic move.

The move to promote Malaysia as a medical tourism hub is in line with the country's Economic Transformation Programme, which is targeting a 16 per cent growth in arrivals to the country from the medical tourism industry.TMC group CEO, Francis Lim, said health screenings and cosmetic surgeries were some of the more popular services requested by foreign visitors.

We are already making inroads in drawing clients from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Indochina, and we hope to expand our services into Europe, the Middle East and all major destinations on MAS routes," he said, adding that TMC was hoping to tap into at least five per cent of MAS current four million international passenger arrivals.

Source = ttgasia