Seoul Ranks No. 4 for Repeat Visits, Tokyo Hits No. 1

Travel platform Agoda combed through its first-half 2026 booking data and found Seoul ranking fourth among Asian cities travelers keep coming back to. Tokyo took the top spot, unseating Bangkok, Thailand, which had held the No. 1 ranking the year before. Bali, Indonesia, also moved up, cracking the top three for the first time. Rounding out the top 10 behind Seoul were Osaka, Da Nang, Kuala Lumpur, Fukuoka, Taipei and Johor Bahru.

What keeps pulling people back to Seoul, according to the data, is a mix of K-pop, festivals, food, beauty and wellness offerings, and shopping. City figures show foreign arrivals to Seoul grew more than 21% in the January-to-July period compared to the same stretch last year. A separate survey by the Seoul Tourism Organization found the repeat-visit rate among foreign tourists climbing steadily too, from the low 40% range in 2023 to 53.6% last year — and topping 70% among Japanese visitors alone in 2025.

Among Korean cities, Busan came in second for repeat visits, followed by Incheon and Daegu. Busan also climbed four spots in Agoda's overall Asia ranking compared to last year, and in July, the city logged more than 500,000 foreign visitors in a single month for the first time — a new monthly record. Incheon has leaned on a campaign built around real lost-and-found items from its festivals to spotlight local attractions, paired with repeat-visit discount coupons, while Daegu has been adding flight routes to Chinese cities to win back foreign travelers.

On the flip side, the overseas destination Korean travelers return to most often is Nha Trang, Vietnam. Tokyo, Da Nang, Fukuoka, Bali, Okinawa and Bangkok followed, while Sapporo and Phu Quoc cracked the top rankings for the first time this year. One airline's Incheon-to-Sapporo route ran at a mid-90% average load factor in certain months during the first half of the year, reflecting just how much demand there is.