SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Yonhap) — The number of foreign tourists visiting South Korea rebounded to 63 percent of pre-pandemic levels last year, the state-run tourism promotion agency said Tuesday.
South Korea welcomed 11,030,000 international tourist arrivals last year, a remarkable 245 percent increase from the previous year, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) said.
The number of arrivals had sharply declined from 17.5 million in 2019 to 2.52 million in 2020 and further to 970,000 in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as South Korea began to lift most of its COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, arrivals started to rebound to 3.2 million that year and surpassed 10 million in 2023.
Foreign tourists take a selfie in front of a welcome center in Seoul’s downtown shopping mecca of Myeongdong, in this file photo taken Jan. 11, 2024, as the country kicked off the Korea Grand Sale 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
Japanese tourists accounted for the largest portion of foreign arrivals in South Korea last year at 2.32 million, followed by Chinese (2.02 million), Americans (1.09 million), Taiwanese (960,000) and Vietnamese (420,000).
December alone witnessed 1,037,000 foreign arrivals, marking the sixth consecutive month the number has surpassed the 1 million mark. Overall, the total number of foreign visitors to the country reached 63 percent of the pre-pandemic level in 2019.
Outbound Korean tourists totaled 22.72 million last year, representing about 79 percent of the 2019 level.
Last year, South Korea’s tourism revenue increased 26.4 percent year-on-year to US$13.52 billion, while tourism spending surged 47.8 percent to $22.4 billion. This resulted in the tourism balance recording a deficit of $8.88 billion, according to the agency.
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