- P-ISSN 2671-8197
- E-ISSN 2733-936X
Overseas tourism in Korea is currently a popular leisure activity that anyone with a little extra time and money can enjoy. However, the popularization of overseas tourism in Korea started only recently. Overseas travel by local residents in Korea was the subject of strict control up to the mid-1980s, and overseas tourism was a particular target of suppression. Despite the continuous rapid growth of the economy, known as the “Miracle on the Han River,” until the 1980s, the Korean government rarely allowed overseas travel by its citizens, not as a response to economic or social conditions but as a result of government policies prohibiting overseas tourism. The “liberalization of overseas travel,” which was merely a rosy dream for the future from the end of 1970s, was finally realized in 1981 when regulations on overseas tourism were partially relaxed. In this paper, we examine how overseas tourism was formed in Korea through the “overseas travel liberalization” processes in the 1980s.