TORONTO — Korea saw tourism grow both from Canada and internationally last year.

International tourist arrivals in 2013 increased 9.3% year over year. Total arrival numbers to Korea reached more than 12.175 million visitors last year, with Canadian arrivals having increased 4.1%.

According to director Doojo Kim of the Toronto office, these 133,640 Canadians are visiting Korea for a variety of reasons. “2013 was a good growth year for Korea. We have entered new niche markets and have focused our strength in our core markets. 2013 was also the anniversary of 50 years of diplomatic relations with Canada. This celebration saw a number of cultural events that brought us a lot of exposure within our major Canadian markets. We have also seen an increase in interest in the Korean War as we celebrate 60 years since the signing of the armistice agreement. We continue to see great strength in stopovers within Korea as well Korea only products.”

Canada has become the third largest long-haul market for Korea as of 2013 with Russia and the U.S. taking the top spots. In 2012, the Canadian market was narrowly beaten out by Australia for the third spot. The Canadian market continues to be a strong market for Korea and 2014 should prove to be just as successful as KTO focuses its efforts on new package development and expand partnerships with its partners.

“We have seen growth thanks mainly to our industry partners,” said Kim. “Without their continued efforts we could not have seen continual growth over the last few years.”