South Korean households' overseas spending jumped 12.9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier on increased outbound travel to neighboring countries, the central bank said Monday.
  
Korean households spent 6.95 trillion won (US$5.9 billion) overseas in the January-March quarter, up from 6.16 trillion a year ago, showed data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). 
   

The quarterly data does not include local households' purchases through "direct buying" channels such as Aamazon.com and their expenditures during overseas business trips, the BOK data said.
  
In 2015, households' overseas spending hit a record high of 26.27 trillion won and it is on the rise this year, it said.  
  
In the January-March period, the number of outbound travelers climbed 18.3 percent year-on-year to 5.56 million, according to the Korea Tourism Organization.
  
Households' overall spending at home and abroad reached 187.69 trillion won, up 3.3 percent from 181.73 trillion won tallied a year earlier, the data said. (Yonhap)