About Dentaltourism
An independent third-party information platform for two audiences — international visitors planning a trip to China for dental treatment, and international expat residents already living in mainland China who need an English-speaking dentist nearby. Built around the decision international patients are actually trying to make, not around what is easiest to monetize.
Our Mission
Dentaltourism currently covers eighteen cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an, Nanjing, Wuhan, Tianjin, Qingdao, Dalian, Changsha, Xiamen, Kunming, Haikou, and Wuxi. Our long-term aspiration is to become a trusted reference node — a layer between visitors and high-quality private dental healthcare institutions, helping international patients find clinics that genuinely prioritize clinical care over commercial pressure.
We use AI agents to assist in routing visitor inquiries to relevant clinics. Visitors then confirm treatment needs, scheduling, and pricing directly with the appointment team at the clinic of their choice. We do not collect commissions for these introductions.
About the Founder
Dentaltourism is founded and edited by Dake Cheng.
Dake spent fifteen years in healthcare services, including nine years inside a publicly listed dental healthcare company in China. During those nine years he led strategic research, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, and the company's AI exploration in the dental sector. The earlier six years were spent on investment, M&A, and management-consulting work focused on private specialty healthcare chains in China.
This professional background shaped a specific view: the difference between a clinic that takes care of patients well and one that is simply polished on the surface is not always visible from the outside, and it is rarely visible to international visitors arriving without a local network. Quality private dental care exists in China, but matching the right visitor to the right clinic is a research-intensive problem that most international visitors should not have to solve alone.
Why I Built Dentaltourism
I have stepped away from my in-industry roles in dentistry — strategy, investment and M&A, and investor relations. What I want to do now is put the experience and understanding I built up over those years — pricing structure, clinical capability, doctor seniority, materials supply chain, post-treatment follow-up — to constructive use, by introducing international visitors to clinics that genuinely put clinical care ahead of commercial interest.
Two threads kept pulling me back. The first is dentistry itself — leaving the industry has not dulled my interest in the field, only changed my angle on it. The second is an active enthusiasm for what is becoming possible with AI agents and AI-assisted information layers. Dentaltourism sits where those two threads meet.
The mainstream search experience — Google or AI chat — currently surfaces either clinic-owned content or sites optimized to capture affiliate commissions. Neither model serves a foreign patient who needs neutral, accurate, clinically grounded information about cross-border dental care. Dentaltourism is my attempt to build something different: independent, slow, accurate, and built around the decision the visitor is actually trying to make.
The eighteen cities we currently cover are selected based on three filters: presence of mature private dental clinic networks with international service experience; accessibility to international visitors (visa frameworks, international flight connections, English-language support); and clinical capability across the procedure categories most relevant to dental tourism — implants, orthodontics, restorative treatment, and cosmetic dentistry.
What Visitors Typically Come For
Patients using Dentaltourism fall into two broad groups. Visiting patients most frequently research replacement of a missing or failing tooth with implant treatment, full-arch restoration with implants or bridges, or comprehensive orthodontic treatment, often comparing cost and timing against options in their home country. A smaller but consistent share research children's dentistry, periodontal treatment, and cosmetic procedures such as veneers and whitening.
Expat residents living in mainland China — a meaningful share of our audience — most often need something more routine: an English-speaking dentist for a cleaning or checkup, a clinic that can fit a Saturday morning appointment, a place to take the kids, or guidance on whether their commercial international insurance plan is directly billable. See our Living in China hub and expat dental care guide for the resident-oriented routes through the site.
For each scenario, the variables that matter most to outcome — implant brand and material choice, doctor experience level with the specific procedure, follow-up support during and after the visit, and total realistic treatment duration — differ enough that a generic price comparison rarely tells a useful story. Our content tries to surface those variables explicitly.
Medical Review
Every clinical treatment guide on this site is reviewed by a licensed dentist or specialist. The Expert Review section at the foot of each guide names the reviewing clinician and lists their credentials. These reviewers were each contacted directly and reviewed the guide content one-on-one before publication. The medical reviewers are not paid for review work and have no editorial veto power over the content of the guides they review; their role is technical accuracy.
Editorial Independence
Dentaltourism does not collect commissions from clinics, does not allow clinics to purchase favorable coverage, and does not allow clinics to review or veto content before publication. Our complete methodology, conflict of interest disclosure, medical review process, and corrections policy are described in our Editorial Policy.
Connect
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dake-cheng-410b3964
- Email: [email protected]
For editorial concerns, correction requests, or clinic listing inquiries, email is the fastest way to reach us.