The number of foreign visitors in South Korea last month returned to the pre-pandemic level.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization(KTO) on Thursday, one-point-46 million foreigners visited the country in September, up 33-point-four percent from a year earlier.

The latest tally is also zero-point-three percent higher than the count from September 2019, before the first case of COVID-19. 

This is the first time the number of foreign tourists has risen above the pre-pandemic figure.

Chinese tourists accounted for the highest proportion of the total, numbering 423-thousand. 

Japanese nationals were next at 311-thousand, followed by people from Taiwan at 126-thousand.

The cumulative number of foreigners arriving in the country between January and September jumped 58-point-seven percent on-year to 12-point-14 million, which is 94 percent of the number before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, 21-point-two million South Koreans traveled overseas during the first nine months of this year, 96 percent of the number before the pandemic.