Foreign tourist arrivals up 21.3% through July, driven by Japanese visitors

Korea welcomed 12.8 million foreign tourists in the first seven months of 2026, marking a 21.3% increase compared to 10.56 million visitors in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Japanese travelers played a significant role in this growth. In July, 28% of all Japanese travelers chose Korea as their destination, setting a new record and representing a 3.5 percentage point increase from the previous year.

This surge in Japanese tourists surpassed the United States, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam in terms of the destination choice for outbound travel. The figure shows an 18.8% increase, with 2.28 million Japanese visitors arriving in Korea, up from 1.93 million in the same period last year. Despite a more modest overall growth in Japanese outbound travel at 4.1%, reaching 8.14 million, the surge in travel to Korea stands out.

The financial impact of these Japanese visitors to Korea was also noteworthy, with foreign tourist spending on credit and debit cards totaling 12.09 trillion won ($8.8 billion) through July, a significant 48.3% increase from 8.15 trillion won a year earlier. Officials suggested that airlines' shift in long-haul capacity to short-haul routes, including flights to Korea, has contributed to this travel boom.

This shift was prompted by high fuel costs, which led to an increase in weekly Korea-Japan flight seats to 349,000, marking a 2.4% rise from the end of the previous year.