South ‌Korea welcomed a record 2.06 million foreign visitors in March, led by Chinese arrivals, government data showed on Thursday, with tourism spending lifted by the comeback tour of Kpop supergroup BTS after ​a years-long hiatus.

Reuters – The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the monthly record ​helped lift first-quarter arrivals by 23% from a year ago to ⁠4.76 million, also a record for a first quarter. It attributed the trend to ​the "worldwide popularity of (Korean) culture", despite turmoil in the Middle East due to the Iran war.

Chinese ​visitors made up the biggest share of visitors at 1.45 million, up 29% from a year earlier, followed by Japanese tourists at 940,915, up 20.2%. Visitors from Taiwan rose 37.7% to 544,503.

Separately, South Korean credit card company Hana Card estimated foreign nationals who bought tickets to attend recent BTS concerts spent about 55.5 billion won in South Korea between January 1 ​and April 12 ​in purchases, with average ⁠spending of 1.85 million won per visitor.