[Edaily Reporter Oh Hee-na ] The K-Culture craze has driven the number of foreign tourists visiting South Korea and their spending to record highs. This trend is interpreted as a result of foreign tourists’ spending expanding beyond K-Beauty and gourmet cuisine to include K-Medicine.

According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea from January through August this year reached 15.05 million, a 21.6% increase from the 12.38 million recorded during the same period last year. The number of visitors in August alone was 2.25 million, up 23.3% from the same month last year. Both the monthly and cumulative visitor counts represent all-time highs.
As demand for travel to Korea has grown, so has spending. From January through August of this year, card spending by foreign tourists in the tourism sector totaled 14.018 trillion won, a 48.5% increase from the 9.4396 trillion won recorded during the same period last year. This is the highest figure since records began.
Spending rose sharply not only in shopping but also in the medical tourism sector, where single expenditures tend to be large. Amid growing demand from foreign visitors seeking to experience Korean food, cosmetics, and daily life, “K-medical tourism” is widely credited with playing a significant role in boosting both demand for visits to Korea and tourism revenue.
The proportion of visitors entering Korea via regional airports and seaports reached 27.8% through August. This marks the highest level of the year, and the trend of expanding demand for travel to Korea from non-metropolitan regions continued to grow steadily.
The inbound tourism market continues to show robust growth across all countries and regions, including Greater China, Japan, Europe, the Americas, Oceania, and Asia-Middle East. In particular, demand for travel to Korea has surged significantly from major Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia.
The number of visitors from the Philippines was 454,000 (16.1%), Vietnam 407,000 (10.5%), Indonesia 295,000 (22.5%), Singapore 243,000 (11.9%), Thailand with 230,000 (14.9%), and Malaysia with 207,000 (12.6%)—all showing significant increases compared to the same period last year.
Tourism demand for South Korea continues to show stronger growth than that of major regional competitors. In fact, through August of this year, the number of foreign tourists from Japan and Thailand decreased by 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively, compared to the same period last year, while South Korea saw a 21.6% increase. Vietnam, meanwhile, saw only a 14.4% increase.

This is attributed to the resolution of entry and exit inconveniences—which had been cited as barriers to travel to Korea from Southeast Asia—through measures such as the relaxation of multiple-entry visa requirements and visa-free entry for group tourists. Following the relaxation of multiple-entry visa requirements for 11 Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, in March of this year, South Korea began temporarily allowing visa-free entry for group tourists from Indonesia starting in May.
Kang Jeong-won, Director General of the Tourism Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated, “To sustain the strong momentum of tourism to Korea, we plan to improve the convenience of entry and exit procedures—including visa issuance and processing at airports and seaports—and strengthen marketing efforts linked to ‘K-Culture.’”