Foreign tourist arrivals in Korea rebound to 63% of pre-pandemic levels last year
Travelers dressed in Korea's traditional attire hanbok pose for a photo at the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, Jan. 29. Yonhap
The number of foreign tourists visiting Korea rebounded to 63 percent of pre-pandemic levels last year, the state-run tourism promotion agency said Tuesday.
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 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.
Japanese tourists accounted for the largest portion of foreign arrivals in 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 one 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, Korea's tourism revenue increased 26.4 percent year-on-year to $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. (Yonhap)