Tourism Patterns Slow to Improve

Slightly more tourists visited destinations in Korea other than Seoul last year, but the proportion is still disappointing, a survey published Monday finds.

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The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism surveyed 12,900 foreign tourists and found that 78.7 percent visited Seoul, down 1.7 percentage points from the previous year, while there was a slight increase in the number of visitors to Gyeonggi Province, Busan, Incheon and other destinations.

There were also changes to their activities. Shopping in Seoul was still the most popular reason for visiting with 67.8 percent, but that was down 4.5 percentage points from a year earlier. Instead there was a two to three percentage-point rise among those who said they came to Korea to check out restaurants or to experience the country's fashion and culture.

For example, 37.4 percent of tourists who visited Busan last year went to the Gukje Market, the biggest traditional market in the city, twice as many as 2014. A growing number are opting to go to authentic Korean places rather than the usual malls.

Lee Hoon at Hanyang University said, "It will be hard to attract 20 million tourists by 2020 simply by pitching the usual tourist sights in Seoul. We need to improve the quality of tourism content by developing new attractions outside Seoul".

Only 46.1 percent of tourists return. The largest proportion of returning tourists was among Japanese (78.7 percent), but only 37.8 percent of Chinese tourists came back.

Chung Ki-yoon at Hana Tour said, "We risk seeing a drastic decline in the number of Chinese tourists if we fail to develop new attractions and come up with a fresh strategy to convince them to return".

Tourists stayed an average of 6.6 days in Korea in 2015, 0.5 day longer than 2014, and spent an average of US$1,712 per person, up 6.7 percent.