SINGAPORE, 28 October 2026: Digital travel platform Agoda and Busan Metropolitan City, South Korea, are marking the first anniversary of their strategic partnership, which has helped attract first-time international visitors to Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city.
The milestone comes as South Korea sharpens its national focus on regional tourism, with the administration describing tourism as a “core national strategic industry” and setting a target of 30 million foreign visitors annually by 2029.
Busan has emerged as an example of this shift, welcoming approximately 3.43 million international visitors through August 2026 and outlining strategic priorities centred on longer stays, higher visitor spending, and building a more sustainable tourism ecosystem.
The partnership milestone comes as Busan hosts the 2nd Global City Tourism Summit from 26 to 28 October, where Agoda Senior Director North Asia Jay Lee delivered the keynote address on the first day.
Jointly hosted and organised by Busan Metropolitan City, the Tourism Promotion Organisation for Global Cities (TPO), and the Busan Tourism Organisation (BTO), with support from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and UN Tourism, the summit brings together cities and tourism industry representatives from around the world to explore cooperation on local tourism and sustainable urban tourism development.
Agoda and Busan’s partnership, formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in October 2025, positioned Agoda as a technology and data partner for the city’s inbound tourism goals. During the campaign period from April to August 2026, Agoda recorded a 77% increase in searches compared to the 140 days before the campaign launched. Agoda insights show that 40% of travellers who booked Busan through the campaign were first-time visitors to South Korea, while another 28% were repeat visitors discovering Busan for the first time. Taiwan, Japan, and China ranked as the top three source markets.
Lee shared: “A year into this partnership, we’re seeing more travellers discover Busan, a growing share of them visiting for the first time, and strong momentum behind Busan’s own Agoda Flagship Store. What excites us is what happens when a city’s tourism strategy and a digital platform’s capabilities point in the same direction. Our priorities now turn to keeping visitors in the city longer, growing in-destination spending, and expanding what travellers can discover across Busan’s districts. As South Korea sharpens its focus on regional tourism, we’re excited to take this model further, in Busan and beyond.”
(Source: Agoda)
