Korea's foreign tourists spend 22% more a head in a trade that ranks 109th on high-wage jobs

Divide the 14.018 trillion won of card spending ^[2] by 15.05 million arrivals ^[1] and each foreign visitor put about 931,000 won on cards in eight months ^[20]. Working last year's base back out of the two growth rates gives roughly 763,000 won a head ^[21]. So Korea is getting more money from each visitor, on top of more visitors ^[21]. Sedaily's editorial on the figures still calls the boom "impressive on the outside, hollow within" ^[25].

Both can be true. Card spending counts what visitors pay. The margin goes to whoever sold the trip, and a sizable share of visitors buy theirs from a global site such as Booking.com ^[24]. Trip.com's revenue has topped 14 trillion won, roughly what foreign tourists have spent in Korea so far this year ^[12]. That revenue is more than 23 times Hanatour's and about 20 times the 700 billion won at the leisure platform Nol Universe ^{[23] [9]}.

The domestic trade was built to send Koreans abroad. Even the large agencies earn commissions arranging airline tickets and lodging ^[13]. Most have fewer than 10 employees and live on cut-price package tours and shopping commissions ^[14]. Of roughly 23,000 travel companies, a substantial share employ one or two people, according to the industry ^[10]. Sedaily says this structure explains Korea's 109th-of-110 place on the share of high-wage tourism jobs ^{[18] [5]}, and we agree. A one- or two-person firm paid a fee per booking has little room to pay more. The other job-quality scores are low as well: Korea comes 88th for its practices on hiring and dismissal, 80th for equality of opportunity in employment and 75th for the rights of workers ^[7].

Government funding has lagged too, and tourism has sat well down the list of policy priorities, the editorial says ^[17]. Korea comes 76th for how much of its public spending goes to tourism and 47th for its tourism policy and the conditions in place to support the trade ^[15]. Sedaily wants tax support and fund-raising programs on a par with manufacturing ^[16]. The 2028 visitor target ^[3] does not depend on that money. Run the eight-month total forward in a straight line and this year ends near 22.6 million arrivals, a crude figure that ignores seasonality ^[26]. Two more years at 21.6% would take that to about 33.4 million ^[27].

The likeliest path has arrivals clearing 30 million while foreign platforms keep the booking margin and Korean agencies stay small. The other possibilities are that a domestic platform at Nol Universe's scale wins a bigger share of inbound bookings, or that the state funds consolidation on manufacturing terms. We expect the first, because the record shows no Korean firm winning inbound share. The counter-case is that card spending is money spent inside Korea whoever took the booking fee ^[12]. If so, the commission that goes abroad could be a small slice of the 14.018 trillion won, and Sedaily does not put a number on it. If Korean agencies' inbound revenue started growing at anything near the 48.5% pace of visitor spending ^[2], we would be wrong.