According to the OECD’s Tourism Trends and Policies 2026 report, published last July, South Korea welcomed 18.94 million foreign visitors in 2025, recording the fourth-highest growth rate among member countries. That was 8% more than the 17,502,756 visitors recorded in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The figures show that South Korea’s tourism industry has not only fully recovered from the pandemic but also achieved its strongest performance on record.
Travel Exports Reach $27.2 Billion, Becoming a Key Pillar of Services Exports
The OECD calculated that South Korea’s travel exports rose 10.4% in nominal terms, from $24.7 billion in 2024 to $27.2 billion in 2025. Travel exports accounted for 18.1% of total services exports, up 0.7 percentage points from the previous year. Tourism is becoming an increasingly important part of South Korea’s broader services sector, extending well beyond accommodation and dining.
AI-Powered Tourism Services Drive Growth
The OECD report gave particular attention to South Korea’s use of AI, highlighting the Korea Tourism Organization’s AI Kkokkok travel recommendation service, which incorporates safeguards for algorithmic transparency and fairness and cross-validates its recommendation models through A/B testing. The big-data analysis platform Tourism Data Lab had 80,000 members and one million monthly visitors as of June 2025, serving as a compass for policymakers and industry, the report said. Personalized information and real-time booking systems have significantly improved visitor satisfaction.
Improving Tourism Accessibility Is a Key Policy Priority
The OECD identified creating a tourism environment accessible to everyone, building a smart tourism ecosystem powered by digital transformation, and developing region-specific tourism resources and organizations as key policy priorities. The South Korean government is helping international visitors travel to and enjoy the country more easily by expanding transport infrastructure, improving multilingual signage and strengthening tourism services for people with disabilities.
Regional Tourism to Boost Local Economies
The government plans to create five major tourism zones by linking the five cities with international airports—Gimhae, Daegu, Cheongju, Muan and Yangyang—with nearby areas that offer specialized tourism resources, allowing visitors’ travel, stays and spending to flow naturally across regions. The initiative focuses on easing the concentration of tourism in Seoul and revitalizing local economies. The Korea Tourism Organization has operated local tourism programs since 2020 and expanded them in 2023 to 13 programs featuring each region’s distinctive culture and cuisine, which it continues to promote.
Full Post-Pandemic Recovery Strengthens Growth Momentum
The OECD’s analysis attributes the strong growth in part to South Korea’s digital capabilities. The report also cited expanded air routes and the recovery of outbound travel from China, as well as South Korea’s activities as the APEC host economy in 2025, including the APEC summit. South Korea’s tourism industry is moving beyond a simple recovery and building a foundation for sustainable growth.
