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Foreign tourist arrivals top pre-pandemic levels on BTS comeback in March

Published: 30 Apr. 2026, 12:53

Members of boy band BTS pose for a photograph during their performance titled, ″BTS The Comeback Live: Arirang,″ in central Seoul on March 21. [NETFLIX/BIGHIT MUSIC]

Foreign tourist arrivals in Korea surpassed pre-pandemic levels in March, data showed Thursday, driven in part by BTS fans coming to attend a landmark concert in Seoul to mark the long-awaited comeback of the K-pop powerhouse.

More than 2.04 million overseas visitors arrived during the month, a 26.7 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the Korea Tourism Organization. The figure also marked a 33.2 percent rise compared with March 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted global travel.

Chinese tourists represented the largest share of arrivals at 501,000, followed by 482,000 from Japan, 192,000 from Taiwan, 152,000 from the United States and 75,000 from Vietnam.

Arrivals from China and Japan rose 2.8 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively, from March 2019. Visitors from Taiwan surged 95 percent, while those from the United States rose 80.9 percent and arrivals from Vietnam climbed 59.3 percent.

The state tourism body attributed the sharp increase to a massive influx of BTS fans attending the group's performance in central Seoul's Gwanghwamun area to mark its return after four years.

Korea's outbound travel also saw an uptick, with 2,293,716 people traveling abroad in March, a 4.4 percent on-year increase. During the first quarter, 8.33 million Koreans traveled overseas, up 5.9 percent from the same period in 2019, the data showed.

Yonhap