The Chinese tourism and travel retail business began with a bang in January with arrivals up by +32.4% year-on-year to 521,981, according to Korea Tourism Organization.
The growth is all the more impressive for coming off a strong base. January 2015 saw a similarly robust +32.9% rise to 394,345.
Departures by Koreans also rose strongly, up +15.1% in January to 2,112,337, following an impressive +20.1% increase in 2015.
The January figures will be much welcomed by Korean travel retailers after a difficult 2015 caused by the mid-year MERS crisis. Chinese arrivals dipped by -2.3% last year, a fall driven entirely by the catastrophic slump in tourism from June through August.
Japanese visitor arrivals remained soft in January, falling -2.0% to 136,884, following a -19.4% fall in 2015.
For 2015, Chinese visitors accounted for 45.2% of all arrivals, with the once dominant Japanese representing a mere 13.9% share.
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| Visitor arrivals by gender for January; Source: Korea Tourism Organization |
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| Visitor arrivals by purpose and nationality for January; Source: Korea Tourism Organization |
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| Outbound departures of Korean nationals by gender for January; Source: Korea Tourism Organization |
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| Visitor arrivals by gender for 2015; Source: Korea Tourism Organization |