BUSAN < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

The number of foreign tourists to Busan surpassed two million for two consecutive years.

Busan City said on February 10th that 2,222,602 foreign visitors came to Busan in 2010.

Busan City said “2,026,070 foreigners visited Busan in 2009, and over two million foreign tourists came to our city last year. We believe that we have fully entered the era of two million tourists.”

By nation, Japan topped the list with 571,436 tourists, followed by China (461,957), the U.S. (130,186), Russia (49,404), Germany (43,939), the U.K. (39,828), Hong Kong (38,337), Canada (34,335), and Taiwan (32,171).

Chinese visitors to Busan increased by 44% compared with last year. Also, Canadian and English tourists rose by 22.6% and 16.8%, respectively. Meanwhile, Japanese and Taiwanese visitors fell by 10.1% and 13.4%, respectively.

Busan said “we have promoted flagship festivals such as Pusan International Film Festival and Busan International Fireworks Festival as tourist products and have made all-out efforts to attract cruise tourists from around the world, significantly contributing to the rise in foreign visitors. We have kept up with the trend of soaring Chinese tourists with systematic strategies, which seems to have played a significant role.”

The number of international cruise ships which entered Busan Port skyrocketed by 278% on a year-on-year basis to 77 (130,000 tourists).

Busan has set this year’s goal to attract 2.5 million foreign tourists, and plans to implement various promotional activities.

Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Feb. 10, 2011)

**This is an English translation of a Korean news article.