Foreign tourist arrivals top 10 mil.

Li Tingting, center, a Chinese tourist, poses with her mother and dignitaries at Incheon International Airport, Wednesday, after receiving a flight ticket as a gift for marking the 10 millionth visitor to Korea this year. The dignitaries are, from left, Korean Air Senior Vice President Woo Kee-hong; Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choe Kwang-shik; and Korea Tourism Organization President Lee Charm. / Yonhap

The number of foreign tourists visiting Korea this year surpassed the 10-million mark Wednesday thanks to a surge in Chinese and Japanese tourists.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) held an event to celebrate the tourism achievement at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul.

It is the first time that the number exceeded 10 million per year.

In a welcoming ceremony at the airport, Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choe Kwang-shik offered flowers to a Chinese woman Li Tingting, who came from Shanghai with her mother and was the 10 millionth person to arrive here in 2012.

The ministry expects 1.3 million more foreign tourists to visit the country by Dec. 31, increasing the total number to 11.3 million. The figure is up from 9.79 million last year.

“The 10-million mark means it is time for Korea’s tourism to take another leap. We need to do more to attract more tourists from around the world,” a KTO official said.

He attributed the growing number of inbound tourists to a boom for Korean pop culture abroad, an active marketing strategy and the nation’s rising international status.

According to the KTO, the annual number of inbound travelers exceeded 1 million in 1978, 3 million in 1991, 5 million in 2000, and 7 million in 2010. Since 1978, the figure has grown by 15 percent annually on average.

The average growth rate for the last three years was 12.4 percent, which is far higher than Italy’s 2.6 percent and the United States and China’s 2.9 percent, respectively, according to the official.

“Among the top 50 nations attracting the largest numbers of tourists, Korea was the only country to record double-digit growth for three consecutive years,” the official said.

He said a surge in Chinese and Japanese tourists has contributed to the huge growth: this year so far, the number of Chinese travelers was 2.9 million, up 30 percent from last year’s total 2.2 million.

From July, more than 300,000 Chinese have been coming here every month, exceeding the figure of Japanese which used to be highest.

The number of Japanese travelers is still high at 3 million, up 19.5 percent from last year.

Besides, 1.5 million people from Southeast Asian countries visited Korea, up 9.7 percent.

The ministry forecast that the influx of foreign tourists will more than double Korea’s tourism revenue to $14.3 billion in 2012 from $6.1 billion in 2007. Thus, the nation’s tourism account deficit will likely amount to $1.2 billion, significantly down from the $10.9 billion deficit recorded five years ago. <The Korea Times/Kim Rahn>