What is 'Busan disease'? The city is now offering a 'cure'

Busan city and the Busan Tourism Organization announced Monday they will launch a "Busan disease cure" promotion aimed at attracting more independent Chinese-speaking tourists, riding a wave of enthusiasm for what has become known as "Busan disease" across major Asian markets.

"Busan disease" is a locally coined term describing the travel aftereffect experienced by tourists who, even after returning home, find themselves longing for Busan's distinctive scenery and atmosphere and yearning to visit again.

As of May 2026, foreign tourist arrivals in Busan reached 460,683 — a 42.9 percent increase from the same month last year. Busan accounted for 22.2 percent of cumulative nationwide foreign tourist arrivals, a record high. The Chinese-speaking market has been the primary driver of that growth. Taiwanese visitors to Busan in May alone numbered 84,502, up 46.3 percent year-on-year, while Hong Kong arrivals maintained a 31.5 percent increase compared with the same cumulative period last year.

The Busan Tourism Organization said it will roll out marketing campaigns designed to boost repeat-visit rates by responding to the preferences and demand of Chinese-speaking consumers.

As a first step, the organization will run an online product promotion on KKday, a global online travel platform, from Tuesday through Aug. 27 — a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding signed with the company. The promotion will feature a distinctive landing page that diagnoses tourists' "Busan disease symptoms" in three stages and recommends tailored tourism products accordingly.

Stage one — the early stage, marked by over-immersion symptoms such as mistaking oneself for a Busan local — prescribes experience-based products including traditional market tours and snap photography sessions. Stage two — the intermediate stage, characterized by compulsive social media browsing — calls for marine tourism products such as a beach train, yacht tours and a Gwangalli sunset stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) experience. Stage three — the terminal, severe-symptom stage — is treated with all-around bundled products that include the Visit Busan Pass, airline tickets and shopping discount vouchers.

During the promotion period, the organization will distribute airline discount coupons worth up to 1,000 New Taiwan dollars (about 50,000 won) on Busan routes, along with first-come, first-served 5 percent discount coupons for tourism products, to drive demand among independent Chinese-speaking travelers.

An on-site event will also be held to reach foreign tourists directly. From Friday through Sunday, a "Busan disease cure event booth" targeting Chinese-speaking tourists from Taiwan and Hong Kong will operate in the arrivals hall of Gimhae International Airport.

Arriving passengers who download a free coupon from the online promotion page and complete a survey will receive a specially produced "cure kit" through a first-come, first-served lucky draw. Each kit contains a humorous "cure certificate," a gua sha facial massage tool, and vouchers for coffee and fish cake experiences, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in Busan's flavors and charm the moment they land.

The organization said it plans to build on the promotion rather than treat it as a one-off effort, by developing more sophisticated, market-specific marketing strategies for Chinese-speaking and other key audiences. It intends to extend tourists' length of stay and build a Busan tourism fandom across Asia by highlighting Busan's distinctive local content — including food, festivals, nighttime tourism and wellness experiences.