South Korea Maintains 14th Place in World Economic Forum Tourism Development Index

4th Place in Asia Following Japan, China, and Singapore

On the 27th, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that South Korea ranked 14th overall in last year's World Economic Forum tourism development index evaluation. It maintained its ranking alongside countries in the top 20 such as the United States (1st), Spain (2nd), Japan (3rd), and Austria (15th). In Asia, it ranked 4th following Japan, China (8th), and Singapore (13th).

The World Economic Forum has been publishing the Tourism Competitiveness Index biennially since 2007 to evaluate the travel and tourism competitiveness of each country and to encourage benchmarking among nations. The name was changed to the Tourism Development Index in 2021 when the evaluation scope was expanded to include the field of 'sustainability of tourism.' It is reported that the composition and calculation methods of the indicators were revised and supplemented.

Among the five categories, South Korea improved its ranking in three compared to 2019: sustainability of tourism (49th → 16th), tourism policy and enabling environment (64th → 61st), and environmental sustainability (21st → 20th). It maintained 15th place in tourism resources, while its ranking in infrastructure and service dropped by one place to 26th.

Looking at detailed subcategories, it rose one place in cultural resources, entering the top 10. Rankings for non-leisure resources and health and hygiene were also high at 11th and 13th, respectively. The level of readiness in information and communication technology (ICT) was the highest at 2nd place, and the land and port transport infrastructure rose four places to settle at 7th.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism stated, “We will carefully analyze the evaluation results to identify strengths and weaknesses,” adding, “We will especially prepare improvement measures promptly for relatively weak areas.”