Korea's Record 18.93 Million Tourists in 2024 Still Fall Short of Long-Delayed Target

In November 2009, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism unveiled its "Tourism Industry Advancement Strategy" at the third Tourism Industry Competitiveness Enhancement Meeting chaired by the president. The strategy set a goal of "20 million inbound tourists by 2020." The initiatives proposed at the time—including making tourism part of daily life, market-friendly policies, and strengthening Korean content—remain familiar challenges today. (In 2008, the preceding year, total foreign visitors numbered just 6.89 million.)

The annual target of 20 million foreign tourists was originally set for 2020, but as everyone knows, it remains unmet even as 2025 has concluded. Of course, serious crises intervened, including China's unreasonable "THAAD retaliation" and the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, Korea welcomed a record 18.93 million foreign tourists in 2025, surpassing the pre-pandemic peak of 17.5 million in 2019. The government has tentatively set targets of 22 million to 23 million for 2026, meaning the 2009 goal would be achieved six years behind schedule.

The reason for revisiting this history is that industry and national strategy are inherently connected. The 2009 strategy opens with self-congratulatory language: "Having declared 2008 as the inaugural year of tourism industry advancement and implemented competitiveness enhancement measures twice, we laid the groundwork for the industry's leap forward." It then acknowledges that "more fundamental prescriptions are needed to firmly establish tourism as a new growth engine," proposing expanded tourism demand, investment activation, high-value-added tourism products, and continued regulatory and institutional reforms.

Fast forward to September 2025, when the ministry announced its "Three Innovation Strategies for Becoming a Global Tourism Powerhouse Beyond 30 Million Arrivals" at the 10th National Tourism Strategy Meeting chaired by the prime minister. This plan set a goal of 30 million foreign tourists by 2030. (The target was later moved up to 2029 in the December presidential briefing.)

Among the initiatives presented at the National Tourism Strategy Meeting, the most eye-catching is the plan to create "second and third inbound tourism zones." (This was reaffirmed in the presidential briefing.) With inbound tourists currently concentrated in Seoul, the idea is to develop one or two tourism zones in regional areas at Seoul's level. The intent seems reasonable enough. The problem, however, is that the "Southern Region Wide-Area Tourism Development Project"—a core ministry initiative until the year before last—has disappeared.

The Southern Region tourism development project was signed in December 2023 during the former Yoon Suk-yeol administration by the culture minister and the heads of five metropolitan local governments along the southern coast. It aimed to invest a total of 3 trillion won over 10 years through 2033 to comprehensively develop tourism resources across five southern provinces including Busan, Gwangju, Ulsan, South Jeolla, and South Gyeongsang.

Some central government budget has been allocated and local governments continue pursuing the project, but it has vanished from the ministry's official mentions since the change in administration. The new inbound tourism zones will likely also be designated in the southern region. I previously raised questions about how the Southern Region tourism project would connect with the "second and third inbound tourism zone" initiative, but received no meaningful response.