The number of Chinese tourists visiting South Korea this year is expected to soar to over one-point-eight million.

According to the Korea Small Business Institute(KOSI) on Friday, an estimated one-point-81 million to three-point-49 million tourists will have visited from China by the end of the year.

The potential increase in consumption due to the inflow of such tourists is estimated to be worth three-point-59 trillion to six-point-95 trillion won, or some five-point-two billion U.S. dollars). 

With 100 million Chinese citizens expected to travel during the National Day Golden Week from September 29 to October 6, KOSI’s associate research fellow Kim Mi-jeong called on businesses to examine the consumption patterns of Chinese visitors.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization’s Data Lab, a mere 227-thousand Chinese traveled to South Korea last year, due largely to COVID-19 travel restrictions in China, a far cry from the more than six million that visited prior to the pandemic in 2019.