By Park Chung-a

Koreans traveling overseas reached an all-time high of 4.1 million in
the first half of this year and as many as 700,000 people left for overseas trips in June alone, the Korea National Tourism Organization (KNTO) said Wednesday.

The figure is up 22 percent from 3.35 million outbound travelers in the same period of 2002 when the number hit the highest record, and is of course way up from the corresponding period last year with 3.07 million when overseas travel diminished in the aftermath of the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in last March.

The organization said if the current trend continues, the total number of outbound travelers this year is expected to reach an all-time high of more than 8 million people.

``Overseas travel is becoming more common these days. Owing to the five-day workweek system, more and more people visit neighboring countries like China, Japan and Southeast Asia for golf trips or sightseeing tours, taking advantage of free time in the weekends,’’ a KNTO official said.

The number of Korean overseas travelers has been continuously growing from 3.07 million in 1998 to 4.34 million in 1999, 5.51 million in 2000, 6.08 million in 2001 and 7.12 million in 2002. The figure edged slightly down last year to 7.08 million due to the outbreak of SARS in China and other Asian regions.

The number of foreign visitors to South Korea also exceeded 2.73 million in the January-June period, up 31 percent from the same period last year and 9 percent from the corresponding period of 2002.

Due to outbound travelers exceeding inbound travelers, Korea recorded $2.07 billion in deficit in the travel account in the first half, up 21.1 percent over the corresponding period last year.

michelle@koreatimes.co.kr