The number of international tourists who visited South Korea surpassed one million last month for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization(KTO) on Wednesday, the number of foreign tourists stood at one-point-03 million in July, a nearly threefold increase over last July and 71 percent of pre-pandemic levels from the same month in 2019.

The largest group of tourists came from China with over 225-thousand visitors. The KTO said the monthly number of visitors from China has increased over ten times on-year since May. 

China was followed by Japan with 211-thousand visitors and the U.S. with 105-thousand.

The number of South Koreans traveling abroad in July jumped 220 percent on-year to two-point-15 million to reach 82 percent of 2019 levels.