Tourist complaints in South Korea reach record levels amid tourism boom

SEOUL – Complaints from tourists in South Korea have hit a record high this year, data showed Sunday, with problems ranging from reckless taxi driving to overpricing at shopping malls.

According to data compiled by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), a total of 1,753 complaints were filed nationwide between January and July this year, already surpassing the 1,744 cases reported last year.

The growing number of complaints has prompted calls for South Korea to take steps to improve tourism services, especially as foreign visitors have complained of excessive cancellation fees and other problems during major events such as concerts by K-pop supergroup BTS.

The total number of complaints from international visitors fell during the COVID-19 pandemic but has risen steadily since 2023, reaching 1,744 last year, with this year’s tally already surpassing the 2025 annual figure in just seven months, the data shows.

By region, Seoul had the most complaints with 665, followed by the southeastern city of Busan with 594, Incheon with 176 and the southern resort island of Jeju with 155.

In Busan, which attracted about 110,000 people in June for BTS’ world tour concerts, the number of complaints more than doubled from the 239 cases reported in all of last year.

Most often, tourists complained about accommodation conditions: 500 cases were related to unilateral cancellation of bookings and inflated cancellation fees.

This was followed by unfriendly service and overpricing in stores (376 cases), followed by poor service at airports and airlines (186 cases) and another 182 cases of complaints about taxi drivers refusing to use meters or driving carelessly.

Foreign visitors accounted for 84.3 percent of all complaints, with Chinese nationals filing the most complaints with 680, followed by Japanese with 263 and Taiwanese with 182.

Experts are calling for efforts by both the government and the private sector to improve tourist satisfaction to support the tourism boom as this year the number of foreign visitors to the country topped 10 million for the first time before the end of the first half of the year.

“As the number of tourists increased and the tourism industry expanded, complaints and other negative indicators also increased,” said Yoon Ji-hwan, a tourism professor at Kyung Hee University.

Yoon also warned that negative experiences posted on social media could quickly spread and harm the tourism industry.