▲ This image of a foreign tourist posing for a photo is provided by the Seoul metropolitan government. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

Seoul-foreign tourists

Foreign tourists visiting Seoul jump 19 pct on-year in April

SEOUL, May 31 (Yonhap) -- A total of 1.56 million foreign tourists visited Seoul in April, marking an 18.8 percent increase from the same month last year, the metropolitan government said Sunday.

Amid the increase, card spending by foreign visitors in Seoul reach 1.15 trillion won (US$763.1 million) in April, up a sharp 50.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the announcement based on data from the Korea Tourism Organization and the culture ministry.

Of the nearly 2 trillion won in card spending by foreigners nationwide last month, Seoul accounted for the largest share of 72.3 percent, excluding online purchases worth 397.4 billion won.

By category, spending at shopping malls reached 245.2 billion won, up 62.5 percent from a year earlier, while medical spending rose by 59.2 percent to 192.1 billion won. Spending on beauty related-purchases increased 35 percent.

The southern district of Gangnam accounted for the biggest share of spending in Seoul, at 29.1 percent, followed by the central Jung district at 27.5 percent and the Mapo district at 7.4 percent.

Chinese tourists represented the largest group of foreign tourists at 440,000, followed by Japanese visitors at 230,000, Taiwanese visitors at 150,000 and American visitors at 130,000.

The number of Taiwanese visitors increased 34.4 percent from a year earlier, while the number of Chinese visitors was up by 12.6 percent compared with April 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the January-April period this year, the cumulative number of foreign visitors to Seoul reached 5.2 million, up 21.4 percent from the same period last year, according to the latest findings.

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