More than 1 million foreign tourists visited South Korea in July, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Sunday, marking the first time the monthly figure has topped the 1-million mark.

“The number of foreign tourists who visited the country in July is estimated at 1.02 million,” a ministry spokesman said. “It is the first time more than one million foreign tourists have visited the country on a monthly basis.”

The previous record was 970,000 set in April.

Ministry officials attributed the surging inflow of foreign tourists to the growing popularity of Korean pop culture among foreigners.

The country is expected to have more than 11 million foreign tourists this year.

Chinese tourists overtook Japanese for the first time in the monthly figure with 320,000 Chinese visiting South Korea last month compared with 300,000 Japanese visitors, ministry statistics showed.

Japanese accounted for 34 percent of foreign tourists in South Korea last year compared with 27 percent for Chinese.

The country had 5.33 million foreign visitors in the first six months this year, up 23.3 percent from a year earlier.

By nationality, Japanese tourists accounted for 1.81 million of the visitors with Chinese travelers totaling 1.19 million.

 (Yonhap News)