The number of Chinese travelers to South Korea has sharply decreased since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. 

According to data by the Justice Ministry on Wednesday, about 33-hundred Chinese travelers visited the country on Tuesday.

The figure represents a drop of 39 percent from the comparable figure for April third in 2017, when the number of Chinese travelers fell to the lowest point during strained bilateral relations over the deployment of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system on the Korean Peninsula in March 2017. 

During the first eleven days of this month, about 65-thousand Chinese people entered the country, down 62 percent on-year. 

Amid the virus outbreak, the number of South Koreans visiting China during the cited period also plunged 81 percent on-year to some 27-thousand.