SEOUL: The number of foreigners visiting South Korea rebounded to nearly 89% of pre-pandemic levels in the first four months of this year, with arrivals from certain countries, including the United States and Taiwan, surpassing those levels, the state-run tourism promotion agency said Thursday.
South Korea welcomed 4.866 million international tourists from January to April, marking an 86.9% increase from the same period a year ago and recovering to 88.8% of pre-COVID-19 levels, Yonhap News Agency quoted the Korea Tourism Organisation.
Notably, Taiwan and the US have exceeded their pre-pandemic tourist numbers by 7.5% and 19.5%, respectively.
Tourists from Indonesia and Singapore also reached 110.4% and 157.4% of pre-pandemic levels.
The rebound in tourist arrivals from China and Japan, the top two countries in South Korea’s inbound tourism rankings, is still relatively slow, having recovered to only 78.1% and 82.5% of pre-pandemic numbers, respectively.
However, these numbers are expected to rise with an expansion in international flight routes and a scheduled increase in flights in the second half of the year.
The annual 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, reaching 3.2 million that year and surpassing 10 million in 2023.
The Seoul government has set an ambitious target of attracting 20 million foreign tourists this year as the global popularity of Korean pop culture continues to drive interest in tourism to South Korea.
The tourism industry expects the goal could be attained if the current rebound trend picks up speed, although it is acknowledged as a challenging target.
