Seoul: Foreign tourist arrivals in South Korea surpassed pre-pandemic levels in March, driven in part by fans coming to attend a landmark concert in Seoul to mark the long-awaited comeback of K-pop supergroup BTS.

According to Yonhap News Agency, more than 2.04 million overseas visitors arrived during the month, marking a 26.7 percent increase from a year earlier. The numbers also represented a 33.2 percent rise compared with March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global travel.

Chinese tourists constituted the largest share of arrivals at 501,000, followed by 482,000 from Japan, 192,000 from Taiwan, 152,000 from the United States, and 75,000 from Vietnam. Arrivals from China and Japan experienced growth of 2.8 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively, from March 2019. Visitors from Taiwan surged by 95 percent, while those from the United States rose by 80.9 percent and arrivals from Vietnam climbed by 59.3 percent.

The state tourism body attributed the sharp increase to a massive influx of BTS fans attending the group's performance in Seoul's Gwanghwamun area to mark its return after four years. South Korea's outbound travel also saw an uptick, with 2,293,716 people traveling abroad in March, a 4.4 percent year-on-year increase. During the first quarter, 8.33 million South Koreans traveled overseas, up 5.9 percent from the same period in 2019, the data showed.