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Tourist Numbers Soar

Gimpo International Airport is packed with travelers on Monday. /Newsis

More than 8 million tourists visited Korea in the first half of this year as the stigma of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak wore off and Chinese package tours returned to industrial scale.

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The Korea Tourism Organization on Tuesday said the number of foreign tourists in the first six months of this year rose 21 percent compared to the same period last year to 8.1 million.

A KTO staffer said, "If there are no unexpected events, we will be able to achieve our annual target of attracting 16.5 million tourists this year".

Some 3.81 million Chinese visited the country, up 27 percent.

The KTO staffer said, "We are now seeing the effects of marketing campaigns in central and western China". The number of big group tours of more than 1,000 Chinese at a time rose 35 percent to 140,000 people.

The KTO plans to target Chinese package tourists during the summer vacation as well, while also doing more to promote halal compatibility to attract visitors from Islamic countries.

Soap star Song Joong-ki is to star in an advertising campaign in countries where Korean TV series have a massive fan base.

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