The billion-dollar industry turns Korea into the world’s ‘aesthetic capital’, Covid-19 makes more money because of the skyrocketing demand
The cutlery “capital” of the world
According to a 2019 statistic, South Korea is the country with the highest number of cosmetic surgeries per capita in the world. Beauty through this method has become so popular that people consider it to be completely normal.
G – a 20-year-old girl working in the television industry in Seoul shared that because of the nature of her job and some personal reasons, she decided to change her face, namely rhinoplasty and eyelid surgery. The surgery went well and G is very satisfied. From then on, she became more confident about her appearance. She even became more extroverted after “cutlery”.
Thanks to the high demand of various audiences, from teenagers to the elderly, the plastic surgery industry in Korea has boomed more than anywhere else in the world.
Plastic surgery is deeply ingrained in Korean culture and subconscious. It’s not uncommon for high school students here to be given a plastic surgery as a graduation gift.
According to a 2015 survey, 14% of Korean women have undergone at least one plastic surgery. The rate is 30% for women in their 20s in particular. Not only women, more and more men have turned to plastic surgery to change their appearance. Thanks to that, this industry in Korea has grown even more strongly.
In 2019, Seoul alone had 600 cosmetic facilities. Another report in 2011 estimated that that year nearly 650,000 cosmetic surgeries were performed. Now, more than 10 years later, that number has certainly doubled.
The international plastic surgery market in Korea is also very developed. In 2018, there were about 50,000 foreigners coming here for plastic surgery, bringing in an amount of $ 189 million for the country’s beauty industry.
Booming thanks to Covid-19
Despite the economy being affected by the pandemic, the plastic surgery industry in Korea is still “making money” due to increased demand in the context that people have more free time and always have masks to cover.
Many people proceed to “fix” their faces because they are not noticed by having to wear masks when going out. Moreover, studying and working from home also helps them recover better after cosmetic surgery.
According to Reuters, the Korean plastic surgery industry is worth about 10.7 billion USD in 2020, up 9.2% over the same period in 2020 and reaching about 11.8 billion USD in 2021.
The surgeons said that the majority of customers want to correct parts such as nose, lips, forehead. A doctor said that many people even use the support money due to the impact of Covid-19 from the government to fix their beauty. That has led to a sharp increase in revenue in the third and fourth quarter of 2020 of this industry in Korea.
“I feel like this is like revenge spending. They express their pent-up emotions due to Covid-19 by spending money mercilessly on cosmetic procedures,” said Dr. Shin.
South Korean government data shows that of the $12.95 billion in Covid-19 support, 10.6% are used in hospitals and pharmacies, ranking third on the spending list, after supermarkets and pharmacies. restaurant. South Korea’s largest online plastic surgery platform, Gangnam Unni, says that its users have increased by 63% compared to 2020, to about 2.6 million. Their users requested 1 million counseling sessions, twice as many as in 2020.
Due to the pandemic, promoting cosmetic services to foreign customers has encountered many difficulties. To overcome this, cosmetic hospitals in Korea have increased their attraction to domestic customers, causing a sharp increase in domestic demand.
Source: NYT, Reuters
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