The cruise tourism industry has been rapidly growing for the past decade, with high spillovers in related industries such as hospitality, food services, and retail. (image:EDman0142@flickr)
SEOUL, Korea, Jan 23 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of visitors to Korea through cruise boats is steadily on the rise. According to a survey by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization, the total number of foreign tourists coming to Korea via cruise ships in 2013 was over 700,000, up 150 percent from the previous year.
By nationality of the visitors, Chinese tourists accounted for the lion’s share of 61 percent (420,000), followed by Japanese, American, and Australian. The average spending by the cruise visitors was US$662, up 29 percent from 2012, with that of Chinese tourists highest among any other national groups at $913.
The cruise tourism industry has been rapidly growing for the past decade, with high spillovers in related industries such as hospitality, food services, and retail. The Korean government has actively sought to host the cruise ships in any one of the ten ports across the country. The number of cruise visitors has increased ten times to 700,000 from only 70,000 in 2008. A study estimated that the economic effect of the cruise industry is as high as $1 billion a year.
Park Jae-seok, Korea Tourism Organization manager responsible for new business development, said, “This year, cruise visitor number is forecast to rise 30 percent to 900,000. We will designate the cruise business as a future growth engine and bring up the visitor numbers to 1 million by 2016.”
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