Declined cards, reservation hassles: Digital barriers still undermine the Korea travel experience

[NEWS ANALYSIS]

When Kate Wilkinson and James Hooper-Smith, tourists visiting Seoul from New Zealand, tried to book movie tickets online last week, they ran into an unexpected roadblock as the purchase would not go through. Completing the transaction required either a Korea-issued card or a local bank account, forcing them to spend part of their tightly scheduled trip searching for workarounds.

“For bookings like trying to reserve movie tickets, we couldn’t use a travel card and needed a Korean card or bank account,” they said. While describing the process as “annoying,” they said they ultimately had to visit the cinema in person to secure tickets, risking sold-out screenings or poor seats.

Paying for public transportation posed another challenge. “Loading up our train Climate Cards [a public transport pass] was a bit tricky. We tried to load them at one station but couldn't, and had to go to the other side of the station to another machine that accepted the Climate Card.”

Digital hurdles frustrate tourists

Foreign tourist arrivals to Korea surpassed pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter, reaching a record 4.76 million for the quarter and more than 20 percent higher than a year earlier amid strong demand for Korean entertainment and shopping, according to the Korea Tourism Organization.

Growth was especially pronounced in March, when K-pop group BTS held a concert in central Seoul, helping drive Korea’s travel account surplus into positive territory for the first time in more than 11 years that month.

But many visitors still face basic payment hurdles, as digital barriers undermine the broader travel experience. While acknowledging Korea’s highly developed infrastructure, they say they frequently encounter obstacles when purchasing goods or booking services online, with key payment platforms often requiring verification tied to a local phone number. Even major players such as Kakao Pay and Naver Pay do not support foreign tourist accounts and have no imminent plans to expand access. Online payments are available on select platforms, including Toss Pay, where users can complete transactions by registering a prepaid card with a passport.

The barrier extends to in-person transactions, with popular venues ranging from restaurants to cafes often using kiosk-based waitlists that require registration via a local phone number.

This pattern is borne out in the data. In Korea, complaints from foreign travelers are heavily concentrated in the digital domain, with digital sign-up and authentication required for online payments accounting for 13.1 percent of reported inconvenience, followed by 11.5 percent related to payment methods, according to data compiled by Yanolja Research in April based on Reddit posts from the start of 2023 through the end of 2025. By contrast, in neighboring Japan, public transit issues ranked highest at 16.7 percent, followed by tourist site operations and accessibility at 14.4 percent, with payment concerns trailing at 7.6 percent.

“Korea’s tourism bottlenecks are less about on-the-ground service failures and more about the information-gathering and system access stages tourists must navigate before they can even use a service,” the report read.  

Payment issues are actually a frequent complaint on Reddit. “Account setup/login difficult; requires Korean phone number,” one post read. Another read, “Overseas cards declined; Apple Pay unavailable; cash-only in some areas.” Apple Pay, the world’s most widely used digital wallet, relies on near-field communication terminals, but adoption remains uneven in Korea due to installation costs for merchants, leaving it unusable at many locations.

“One of the most urgent priorities in improving the traveler experience is payment infrastructure,” said Go Gye-seong, professor at Kyungnam University’s Department of Travel, Aviation and Tourism. From the moment visitors arrive — at airports, on public transportation, in restaurants and while shopping — each step shapes their overall impression. If obstacles persist throughout that process, it can undermine the experience travelers expected and ultimately influence whether they choose to return.”

Move faster, or fall behind

Efforts to improve payment convenience are gaining traction amid rising demand. Seoul Metro said that since Seoul Subway began allowing foreign credit cards and mobile payments for transit card purchases and top-ups in March, usage has averaged more than 9,000 people a day. An analysis of transactions across Lines 1 to 8 from March 17 to April 17 showed an average of 9,158 daily users, with about 70 million won processed each day via overseas-issued cards and mobile payment services.

More changes may be on the way. Last month, Seoul mayoral candidate Jeong Won-oh unveiled a tourism policy that would allow foreign visitors to use all forms of public transportation in Seoul with credit cards issued in their home countries. Currently, most tourists must purchase prepaid transit cards to use the system.

Some experts say digital payment service providers that also operate platforms used by travelers should take a more active role in improving access for foreign visitors, calling the issue urgent. Allowing email-based verification for payment and reservation systems — rather than the current requirement for local mobile phone authentication — should be a top priority, according to Lee Hoon, a tourism professor at Hanyang University.

“Kakao and Naver, which also operate map-based platforms tied to service bookings, need to take a more proactive approach,” Lee said. “Many tourism-related services are built around mapping platforms, and since Korea has allowed Google Maps data to be exported overseas, Google’s influence in Korea is likely to grow significantly. Unless Korean companies are adequately prepared, there is a strong possibility the ecosystem will increasingly become centered on Google.”

BY JIN MIN-JI [[email protected]]