Fewer Than 10,000 Tourists a Month Visit Korea

The uphill struggle of the tourist industry if and when lockdown ends is brutally illustrated by the latest tourism figures.

The monthly average number of foreign tourists has plunged below 10,000 due to the coronaviris pandemic, reaching just 9,700 in the months of April to December last year, according to the Korea Tourism Organization on Monday.

That is not even one percent of the roughly 1 million tallied in January last year before the pandemic hit, though even that number is astonishing given stringent quarantine requirements.