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South Korea Records Highest Tourism Surplus Since Pandemic

morning · · thread: South Korea's Culture Ministry Sets Goal of 40 Million Annual Foreign Visitors

2 sources · South Korea · 1 of them is linked to a state

Who reported this

  • Yonhap South Korea · Centre · State-affiliated · Cooperative; statutory national agency with state subsidy
  • The Korea Herald South Korea · Centre-right · Herald Corporation (Yeongpoong Group)

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

Every source for this story reports from South Korea.

South Korea's tourism balance reached a record surplus since the COVID-19 pandemic in June, according to data from the Korea Tourism Organization. The country's travel account recorded a surplus of 596.6 million US dollars for the month. This represents a significant shift from June of the previous year, when the sector saw a deficit of 846.8 million US dollars.

The June figure is the second highest surplus recorded since October 2008, when the balance reached 661.5 million US dollars. After 72 consecutive months of deficits starting in March 2020, the tourism balance returned to the black in March of this year and has remained positive since.

Total revenue from the tourism sector in June was 2.78 billion US dollars. On average, foreign tourists spent 1,397 US dollars per person. Professor Kim Nam-jo of Hanyang University attributed this growth to the global popularity of South Korean cuisine, pop culture, and K-pop. To ensure long term sustainability of the surplus, Professor Kim recommended that the government expand its tourism policy focus beyond major cities like Seoul and Busan to include smaller rural areas.

How each side framed it

Centre
The outlet presented the data as a straightforward economic recovery driven by cultural exports.
Centre-right
The outlet mirrored the factual reporting of the center source without introducing alternative framing.

Sources

100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.