Foreign visitors to S.Korea on course to top 10 mn milestone

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Young-Chan Song 1

Nov 29, 2023 (Gmt+09:00) 0full@hankyung.com

Travel & Leisure

The number of foreign visitors to South Korea spiked 158.3% to 1.23 million in October from the month previous, the Korea Tourism Organization said on Wednesday, raising expectations that total foreign arrivals to the country would surpass the 10 million milestone for all of 2023.

The October number marked the fourth straight month of the monthly visitor number surpassing 1 million.

By country, Japanese nationals accounted for the biggest slice of foreign visitors at 255,000 in October, followed by those from China at 249,000; the US at 116,000; and Taiwan at 97,000.

Next came Thailand and Vietnam, each from which 46,000 travelers arrived in South Korea last month.

Men in royal guard costumes perform traditional royal martial arts at Gyeongbokgung Palace for the first time in four years in Oct. 2023

In September, Chinese visitors topped the list of inbound travelers with 264,000, outstripping the 250,000 from Japan.

Since China lifted a ban on group tours to South Korea in August after more than six years, a greater number of Chinese nationals has traveled to the neighboring country.

“In October, the visitor number in (South) Korea increased to the highest level this year,” the tourism organization said in a statement.

Last month, the number of visitors from both Europe and North America reached 97% of the pre-pandemic level recorded in 2019.

The October tourist number from both the Middle East and other Asian countries was equivalent to 86% of the pre-pandemic level.

In the first 10 months to October of this year, a total of 8.88 million foreigners visited South Korea, a whopping 303.9% surge from the same period last year. That represents about 61% of the figure in the same period of 2019.

A long line of travelers waiting for baggage check-in at Incheon International Airport in January 2023

For the 10 months ended October this year, the number of inbound Japanese tourists came in at 1.84 million, the largest foreign traveler group, followed by China’s 1.54 million; 910,000 from the US and 790,000 from Taiwan.

OUTBOUND TRAVELS

Outbound travelers from South Korea soared 164.1% on-year to 2.04 million in October, about 95% of the figure in the same period of 2019.

On a cumulative basis, a total of 18.24 million Koreans have taken overseas trips in the period of January and October this year, up 75% from the equivalent period of 2019.

Write to Young-Chan Song at 0full@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article