South Korea cruise arrivals exceed 200,000 in May

Official data from the Korea Tourism Organization show that 206,542 foreign passengers and crew disembarked from cruise ships in South Korea in May, a 13.4% rise from the previous month and 12.2% higher than a year earlier. The increase brings the cumulative number of cruise arrivals for the first five months of the year to 709,000, up 5.9% from the same period in 2025, and suggests the annual total could surpass the 1.6 million record set last year.

By port, Seogwipo on Jeju Island recorded the highest arrivals with 84,000 passengers, followed by Busan (78,000), Incheon (25,000) and Jeju city (17,000). Chinese nationals constituted the largest share of visitors, with 93,000 arrivals (45.1% of the total), while tourists from the Philippines and Japan each numbered about 23,000, and those from Indonesia and India arrived in the tens of thousands. The 100,000‑ton cruise ship Visio, carrying more than 1,500 Chinese tourists, was among the vessels visiting South Korean ports during the month.