South Korea: In November, foreign visitors to increased by 17%
South Korea: As the nation’s tourist industry continues to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, the number of international visitors to South Korea increased dramatically in November, up 17.3% from a year earlier, according to official figures released on Tuesday.
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) reports that around 1.6 million international visitors came in November, up from 1.36 million the previous year and 9.6% more than the same month in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
With 378,000 arrivals, China continued to be the top source of tourists, followed by Japan (363,000), Taiwan (158,000), the United States (133,000), and the Philippines (60,000), according to Yonhap news agency.
Japanese tourist arrivals increased 40.4% over the same time in 2019, while the number of Chinese visitors rebounded to almost 75% of 2019 levels.
According to the KTO, 17.42 million international visitors visited South Korea between January and November, up 15.4% from the same time last year and 8.6% from 2019 levels. About 5.09 million, or 29.2 percent, of the total number of visitors were from China.
This year, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism predicted that the number of international tourists will reach 18.7 million, approaching the landmark 20 million threshold and establishing a new record. Prior to the pandemic in 2019, 17.5 million was the previous record.
In the meanwhile, the government’s special investigation into non-housing real estate transactions has turned up 88 suspected instances of illicit property transfers involving foreign persons.
The authorities discovered 126 alleged criminal activities connected to 88 transactions recorded between July 2024 and July of this year during the joint investigation conducted by the land ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination from September through last week.
Deals involving property and “officetels,” which are multifunctional structures featuring residential and business units, were the main focus of the proceedings.
Unauthorized rental activities by foreign nationals without the required resident status, illicit inflows of foreign capital, and abuse of bank loans are among the suspected infractions.