South Korea offers bus fare discounts to foreign tourists to promote regional travel

South Korea is launching a significant discount program to make intercity travel more accessible and appealing to foreign tourists, aiming to draw visitors beyond the capital, Seoul. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization are partnering with global travel platform KLOOK and payment platform Hanpass to offer substantial savings on express and intercity bus tickets.

The promotion, which runs for one month from mid-June to mid-July, allows foreign tourists to receive discounts of up to 9,000 won on bus fares. This initiative is designed to address the long-standing inconvenience foreign visitors have faced when trying to navigate public transportation outside of Seoul. While the adoption of overseas card payments at bus terminals has increased foreign visitor usage, many still rely on on-site ticket purchases due to low awareness of online booking options.

To counter this, the ministry and tourism organization have already distributed multilingual transportation information on platforms like VISITKOREA. This new discount program is a concrete step to actively promote private online booking services. The collaboration is part of a public-private consultative body focused on tourism and transportation, involving mobility and financial companies.

Under the program, users booking tickets through KLOOK will receive an immediate 5,000 won discount, supported by the tourism organization. Additionally, using Hanpass for bookings offers a further 4,000 won discount. KLOOK is also providing a complimentary travel eSIM to users who book their tickets through its platform. Kang Jeong-won, Director of Tourism Policy at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated, "As the number of foreign tourists visiting Korea has reached an all-time high from January to April this year, we will continue to improve transportation infrastructure and environments so that foreign tourists can travel to various parts of the country more conveniently."