South Korea earned the largest income ever from tourism last year as the popularity of Korean popular culture lured more foreign tourists, shrugging off the effects of a stronger won, central bank data showed Thursday.

Korea's income stemming from foreign tourists' spending here reached a record high of US$14.2 billion in 2012, up 13.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The on-year growth rate in 2012 slowed from a 20.9 percent on-year gain seen in 2011, but the country's income from tourism has surpassed the $1 billion mark for the 17th straight month in December last year.

The rise in tourism income came even as the Korean currency appreciated 7.6 percent per dollar last year and gained 19.6 percent against the Japanese yen.

Market watchers said that the improvement in tourism income mainly resulted from the popularity of Korean popular culture, called "hallyu" in Korean.

Hallyu, or the Korean wave, refers to the popularity of TV shows and music that have secured hordes of fans in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

But, reflecting the impacts of the won's gain, Korea's travel account balance remained in the red last year, the data showed.

Korea's travel account logged a deficit of $5.87 billion last year, smaller than the shortfall of $7.41 billion the previous year, according to the BOK.

The travel account, which tracks outlays by South Koreans on overseas trips and studies, is part of the service account.

South Korea's service account posted a surplus of $2.68 billion last year, the first surplus since 1998.

Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Feb. 7, 2013)