The number of foreign visitors to South Korea saw a significant increase in November, rising by 17.3% compared to the previous year. Official data from the Korea Tourism Organization revealed that about 1.6 million foreign tourists visited in November, marking a 9.6% increase from the same month in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
China led as the largest source of visitors with 378,000 arrivals, followed by Japan at 363,000, Taiwan at 158,000, the United States at 133,000, and the Philippines at 60,000, according to reports from Yonhap news agency.
In the period from January to November, South Korea welcomed a total of 17.42 million foreign tourists, showing a 15.4% increase from the previous year. Visitors from China accounted for about 29.2% of the total, approximately 5.09 million visitors.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism anticipated that the annual number of foreign visitors would exceed 18.7 million this year, aiming to reach a new record high close to 20 million. The previous record was set at 17.5 million in 2019, just before the pandemic.
A special investigation by the land ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination uncovered 88 suspected cases of illegal property transactions involving foreign nationals. The cases mainly revolved around transactions related to “officetels” and land, with suspected violations including illegal fund inflows from overseas, unauthorized rental operations by foreigners without proper residency status, and misuse of bank loans.
