Credit card spending on culture in South Korea fell for a second straight year in 2025, dropping 11.2% from a year earlier to 3.2017 trillion won ($2.2 billion), and declined another 6.8% in the first half of this year.
The figures were submitted by the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute to Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee. Spending on culture last year was 3.2017 trillion won, or 405.7 billion won less than the 3.6074 trillion won recorded in 2024. From January through June this year, spending came to 1.5112 trillion won, down 6.8% from the same period a year earlier. Working backward, first-half spending last year is estimated at about 1.62 trillion won, implying a decline of roughly 110 billion won. The data did not identify a reason for the drop.
By year, spending rose 28.4% from 2.8134 trillion won in 2021 to 3.6138 trillion won in 2023. It slipped by 6.4 billion won, or 0.2%, in 2024, leaving it effectively flat, before the decline widened last year. Even so, last year's figure was 13.8% higher than in 2021.
Spending on tourism and leisure fell by 1.9973 trillion won, or 3.1%, to 61.4291 trillion won last year from 63.4264 trillion won in 2024. The rate of decline in culture, at 11.2%, was more than three times that of tourism and leisure. But culture spending last year was equivalent to just 5.2% of the tourism and leisure total, so the won amounts of the declines differed widely. In the first half of this year, tourism and leisure spending rose 4.6% to 31.2306 trillion won, moving in the opposite direction from culture.
In a monthly report released in July, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute said credit card spending on culture, sports and tourism in May totaled 6.307 trillion won, up 6.0% from a year earlier. Transactions involving sporting and leisure goods and culture and leisure services increased, while travel and transport services fell 3.4%. That measure combines sports and tourism with culture, however, making it difficult to compare directly with figures for culture alone.
Jin said domestic spending on culture has been in a chill for a third year even as overseas tourism and cultural exchange have grown more active. Including the first-half decline, the downturn extends into a third year, though annual figures for this year have not been finalized. Jin said support measures to expand households' spending capacity and tailored tourism policies are urgently needed. Because the data cover only credit card payments, their scope may differ from total cultural spending that includes other payment methods.