Korea's Cherry Blossom Tourism Bump

It’s cherry blossom season in South Korea and the charm of the blooming trees that can be found in Seoul and elsewhere in the country is not only appealing to the locals. The number of international visitors is also rising during March and April which are known to be the months in which the Korean cherry trees are in full bloom.

Japanese travelers, whose country is also famous for beautiful cherry blossoms, are the ones which are drawn to Korea most in the spring, but Chinese travelers are also flocking to Korea in growing numbers during that time. Korean cherry blossoms are in fact different from their Japanese counterparts: they are of a different variety with fuller blossoms, but also with a shorter period of bloom.

Other periods that attract tourists to Korea are summer holidays, which again attract many visitors from Asia, and the fall around the time of the Korean harvest festival Chuseok, which sees the highest concentration of foreign visitors to the country. All in all, more than 15 million foreigners visited Korea in 2018, according to the Korea Tourism Organization.