Chinese stay 5.4 days Japanese 3.8 days on Seoul visits

Chinese on average stay 5.4 days in Seoul, while Japanese stay 3.8 days. Visitors from around the world average 5.8 days, a recent study shows.

The Seoul Institute surveyed 1,045 respondents from Asia, North America, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East and Africa.

The visitors mainly came for tourism (54.7 percent), followed by shopping, vacationing, business, visiting acquaintances, experiencing hallyu and studying.

The survey showed there were more individual travelers (63.2 percent) than package travelers (26.8 percent), more female visitors (53.7 percent) than males (46.3 percent). People in their 20s and 30s accounted for 65.1 percent.

For 56.6 percent, it was their first visit to Seoul; for 18.8 percent their second and for 24.7 percent their third.

Among Japanese respondents, 52.5 percent visited Seoul at least three times.

The largest percentage of shoppers visited street shops, followed by department stores and traditional markets.

Foreign visitors’ most popular purchases were cosmetics, followed by food and clothes. Among cosmetics, skin care products were most favored. For food, visitors mostly bought snacks and dried seaweed products.

Visitors on average spent 1.84 million won ($1,600) on their trips to Seoul.

Chinese spent 2.83 million won and visitors from the Middle East 2.75 million won. Japanese spent the least at 880,000 won.