SOUTH KOREA. South Korean overseas departures continued to climb sharply in July, with official Korea National Tourism Organization figures showing a +23% increase over July 2003 to 897,234.
July is a peak holiday month for South Koreans. July’s year-on-year increase was lower than the +47.2% experienced in June, reflecting the fact that the market was beginning to recover from SARS by July 2003. In that month the number of outbound South Koreans reached 729,337 and for the same month in 2002 the figure was 724,788.
Departures to number one destination, China, climbed +80.7% to 246,301 from just 136,336 last July (a SARS-related -23.4% drop on the 177,965 for July 2002). Importantly from a travel retail perspective, China is now the favoured destination for just over one in every four outbound South Korean travellers, accounting for 25.2% of travelling nationals for the year to date and 27.5% in July alone.
To underline China’s dramatic rise as a tourism (and business) attraction for South Korean travellers, one only has to compare today’s position with that of January-July 1997, when China had a market share of just 11.6%.
Japan was the next most popular destination in July, attracting 17.2% of Koreans (18.6% year to date). Then followed the US and Thailand with a 7.8% and 6.9% share of the July outbound market respectively. Thailand (8.1%) edges ahead of the US (7.6%) for the year to date.
But departures to Japan slipped -1.8% in July year-on-year to 153,960. Travel to Japan was unaffected by the SARS crisis last year. For the year to date though, numbers to Japan are up +15.1%.
Number three Asian destination, Thailand, rose +20.9% to 62,051 (51,325 in July 2003 and 44,703 in July 2002). South Korean visitor numbers to the US fell again (-5.0% last month also), this time by -16.4% to 70,126 from 83,893 in July 2003 (78,940 in July 2002). Canada, another big market, continued its post-SARS bounceback, rising +8.6% to 19,523.
The important Australian market was down -3.2% in July to 17,583 (New Zealand was up +2.0% to 8,979) while the key European markets of the UK and Germany (19,180 and 15,946 visitors respectively in July) were flat.
Predictably, the big Asian markets badly affected by SARS last year all showed very strong year-on-year growth in July. Other than mainland China, Taiwan was up +53.0%, Hong Kong rose +49.9%, the Philippines increased +16.1% and Singapore climbed +33.2%.
For the first half of 2004, South Korean outbound travellers shot up by +31.3% to 4,983,503 compared to 3,796,118 in 2003 and 4,076,842 in 2002.
INBOUND MARKET SEES SURGE IN JAPANESE, CHINESE AND TAIWANESE TRAVELLERS
Inbound travel showed a similarly positive picture. The top nationalities were as always dominated by Japanese visitors, followed by Chinese, Americans and Taiwanese.
South Korean travel to Japan last year may have been unaffected by SARS but the reverse was not true. Despite South Korea remaining SARS-free, the Japanese reluctance to travel internationally, hurt their near neighbours badly during the worst months of the crisis.
For July, Japanese visitor numbers rose +69.1% year-on-year to 209,464 (compared to just 123,887 in the same month in 2003 and 212,753 in July 2002). This year’s figure falls short of the 225,940 recorded in June 2001.
Chinese visitor numbers rose sharply this July compared to last year. Numbers rose +40.5% over 2003 to 54,860, well ahead of 2002 levels. The Taiwanese, so badly impacted by SARS continued to return, growing +72.8% to 32,397.
For the first seven months of 2004, Japanese arrivals were up by +38.2% to 1,276,081 compared to 923,485 in 2003 and 1,238,237 in 2002 (but a higher 1,457,238 in 2001). Chinese visitor numbers for the January-July period increased by +47.7% on the troubled period last year to 356,346 .
Taiwanese visitors for the seven months rose by +114.9% to 174,873.
MORE STORIES ON THE SOUTH KOREAN TRAVEL MARKET
South Korean travel numbers show buoyant inbound and outbound growth trends – 22/07/04
Big growth in travel between China and South Korea – 30/06/04
Fewer South Koreans sneaking illegal liquor past customs – 23/06/04
South Korean travel market resurgent; Outbound numbers strong but Japanese inbound soft – 03/06/04
