South Korea

There were 39,440,000 internet users in South Korea (representing 80.9% of the population) in June 2011, according to Internet World Stats. This represented 4.2% of the Asian population. (Internet World Stats, August 2011)

38.1 million people will use the internet in South Korea by 2013, according to eMarketer. This would be up from 36.1 million in 2009.

Internet users in South Korea 2008-2013:
- 2008: 35.4 million
- 2009: 36.1 million
- 2010: 36.7 million
- 2011: 37.3 million
- 2012: 37.8 million
- 2013: 38.1 million

(eMarketer, May 2009)

Online travel market

Travel planning

Seoul Tourism Organization has launched  iTour Seoul 2.0, a free GPS-based mobile application, giving Seoul travellers instant access to all the essential information they need to navigate their lives in Seoul, all on the go.  The mobile application is available for iPhones in Korean and English.

iTour Seoul 2.0 automatically identifies the user's current location and provides detailed information on the most highly recommended and popular attractions, shops, hotels, restaurants, and recreational areas nearby. All tourist information provided is within a 3km radius of each recommended area in Seoul. The application also comes with the handy iTour Seoul Map that lets users conduct searches on any location in Seoul and find the best public transportation route to reach a destination. iTour Seoul 2.0 also provides users with useful contact information for tourist information centres and emergency numbers, as well as convenient information such as the locations of banks and currency exchange booths.

The application will be developed for Japanese and Chinese language versions in the near future, as well as for use in other smartphones like the Android phones and the Windows Mobile phones.

iPhones with the iTour Seoul application already installed are available for rent in several places throughout Seoul. It can be rented with a credit card or a 600,000 won (approx. $600) cash deposit. Using the iTour Seoul application is free, but calls made on the rental iPhone will be charged separately (within Korea: 100 won/10 seconds). Using other applications or the website may incur additional charges. (TravelDailyNews, December 2010)