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Korea Tourism Organization, Eastar Jet launch regional flight push for Chinese travelers
An Eastar Jet Boeing 737 aircraft in flight / Courtesy of Eastar Jet
By Lee Kyung-min
The vast majority of foreign tourists visiting Korea follow a familiar itinerary, funneling almost exclusively through Incheon International Airport before packing into the trendy shopping districts and historic palaces of Seoul. National tourism authorities are now engineering a shift outward, betting that direct international flights to regional hubs will help economic growth in the country's less-visited provinces.
In a move to decentralize tourism and attract more numbers of travelers from China, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) signed a strategic partnership on July 23 with budget carrier Eastar Jet. The agreement establishes a joint framework to expand direct international routes operating out of regional airports, aiming to divert incoming visitor traffic away from the capital and directly into regional local economies.
Under the partnership, KTO and Eastar Jet plan to increase the airline’s proportion of regional inbound foreign passengers to 45 percent this year, with an ambitious target of reaching 55 percent by 2028. The initiative focuses heavily on the Chinese market — a vital source of inbound travel — through joint marketing campaigns, expanded charter flight offerings for large corporate events and shared data analytics to optimize route capacity.
The push comes as regional aviation recovers momentum.
Among local low-cost carriers, Eastar Jet currently holds the highest proportion of China routes operating from regional Korean airports. To capitalize on this footprint, the airline is introducing summer flights connecting regional hubs to Chinese cities such as Datong, Nantong and Ningbo, while boosting flight frequency between Busan and Taipei. Additional routes departing from the southern port city of Busan and the southeastern hub of Daegu are slated to launch next year.
The strategy reflects a broader change within Korea’s tourism sector to achieve an ambitious national goal of attracting 30 million foreign tourists annually while mitigating overtourism in Seoul.
"Expanding foreign visitor arrivals through regional airports is an essential step for reaching our 30 million tourist milestone," said Jeong Seok-in, head of the KTO’s International Tourism Division. "Through this partnership, our goal is to systematically increase foreign arrivals at regional gateways, ensuring that international travel translates directly into local spending and longer stays across the countryside."
By pairing state promotional efforts with expanding routes among budget carriers, the tourism organization said it is laying the groundwork for a more balanced tourism model — one where regional cities step out from Seoul's shadow to capture a larger share of the global travel market.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.