{"id":261030,"date":"2026-05-20T10:55:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T01:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/uncategorized\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:55:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T01:55:59","slug":"2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/tour\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"2026: Record-Breaking 2 Million Foreign Tourists Visit Korea &#8211; What\u2019s Driving This Surge?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Translation result<\/p>\n<div class=\"ynaobject\" ynaimage ynatype_01><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"yna_img\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/image\/2026\/04\/CP-2023-0139\/image-e5ee3503-4277-45f2-96d4-517a0a1f1a70.jpeg\" alt><span class=\"yna_title\">Record First-Quarter High for Foreign Tourists to South Korea<\/span><span class=\"yna_caption\">[Yonhap News file photo]<\/span><span class=\"yna_description\">[Yonhap News file photo]<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<p> More than 2 million visitors traveled to South Korea last month. The Korea Tourism Organization reported that 2,045,992 foreign tourists visited in March, a 26.7% increase from the same month a year earlier. That total is also 33.2% higher than March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. China topped the list with about 501,000 visitors, followed by Japan, Taiwan, the United States, and Vietnam. Taiwan, the U.S., and Vietnam showed especially strong growth compared with 2019. Analysts say a big part of the surge came from global fans flying in for BTS\u2019s comeback shows. BTS dropped their fifth studio album, Arirang, last month and staged comeback performances around Gwanghwamun in Seoul. Meanwhile, 2,293,716 Koreans traveled abroad during the same period, a 4.4% increase, and cumulative outbound travel for the first quarter reached 8.33 million. #tourists #BTS #KoreaTourismOrganization Yonhap News TV \u2014 Tips and inquiries: KakaoTalk\/Line jebo23 Kim Do-heon (dohoney@yna.co.kr)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In March, South Korea welcomed over 2 million foreign tourists, a 26.7% increase from last year and 33.2% more than in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/thumbnail\/2026\/04\/CP-2023-0139\/thumb-eabd3d99-e6fc-42b5-abb7-99acbf236958.jpg","footnotes":""},"categories":[278096],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tour"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>2026: Record-Breaking 2 Million Foreign Tourists Visit Korea - What\u2019s Driving This Surge?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In March, South Korea welcomed over 2 million foreign tourists, a 26.7% increase from last year and 33.2% more than in 2019.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/tour\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ko_KR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2026: Record-Breaking 2 Million Foreign Tourists Visit Korea - What\u2019s Driving This Surge?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In March, South Korea welcomed over 2 million foreign tourists, a 26.7% increase from last year and 33.2% more than in 2019.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/tour\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"nonhyeon-ilbo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T01:55:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T01:55:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/image\/2026\/04\/CP-2023-0139\/image-e5ee3503-4277-45f2-96d4-517a0a1f1a70.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"\uac1c\ubc1c\uae30\ud68d\ud300\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/tour\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/tour\/2026\/05\/20\/2026-record-breaking-2-million-foreign-tourists-visit-korea-whats-driving-this-surge\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\uac1c\ubc1c\uae30\ud68d\ud300\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/b2265094fd34d8bb5cfbaf6040fa17d3\"},\"headline\":\"2026: Record-Breaking 2 Million Foreign Tourists Visit Korea &#8211; 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