SEOUL - South Korea recorded 1,753 tourist complaints from January through July, already surpassing the total for all of 2025.
The Korea Tourism Organization figures reported Sept. 6 show the seven-month total exceeded the 1,744 complaints recorded throughout 2025 by nine cases, setting a new annual high before the year was complete.
The KTO figures, published through its Tourism Data Lab, cover complaints submitted through the Tourist Complaint Center website and the 1330 tourist information service.
Foreign visitors accounted for 84.3% of complaints. Chinese nationals filed the most, with 680 cases, followed by Korean complainants with 276, Japanese visitors with 263 and Taiwanese visitors with 182.
Accommodation was the largest complaint category. General accommodation accounted for 500 cases, including unilateral booking cancellations and excessive cancellation fees, while hotels recorded another 146 complaints involving cancellations, service and hygiene.
Shopping generated 376 complaints, followed by airports and airlines with 186 and taxis with 182. Seoul recorded 665 complaints and Busan 594.
The increase comes as South Korea’s inbound tourism reaches record levels. The country welcomed 10.71 million foreign visitors in the first half of 2026, the first time the total passed 10 million before midyear.
Foreign visitors spent 10.0389 trillion won using payment cards during the same period, up 50.8% from a year earlier.
The raw complaint total does not establish that the complaint rate per visitor has increased, because foreign arrivals have also risen sharply. But accommodation pricing and booking disputes have prompted government action.
Since Aug. 4, foreign-tourist urban homestays and hanok experience businesses can face a five-day suspension for a first offence of failing to display accommodation rates or charging more than the displayed price.
The government also plans further measures against unjustified unilateral booking cancellations and intends to extend stronger pricing enforcement to taxis and food-service businesses.
Seoul has separately introduced bilingual taxi receipts aimed at tackling overcharging and helping foreign passengers understand fares and surcharges.
“As the number of tourists has grown and the tourism industry has expanded, complaints and other negative indicators have also increased,” Kyung Hee University tourism professor Yoon Ji-hwan said.
