Longer Chuseok holiday doubles domestic travel demand, data shows

Extending the Chuseok holiday from five days to a full week roughly doubles the surge in domestic travel destination searches, according to new data.

Navigation app operator Tmap Mobility analyzed destination-setting data for the Chuseok holidays in 2024 and 2025, finding that searches for travel and leisure destinations rose 145.3 percent and 287.5 percent, respectively, compared with the same period just before each holiday. The analysis covered the top 1,000 most-searched destinations nationwide during each period.

Last year's Chuseok holiday was unusually long because National Foundation Day (Oct. 3) and Hangul Day (Oct. 9) fell close together, with substitute public holidays and weekends bridging the gap. The government further extended the break by designating the intervening weekday — Oct. 8 — as a temporary public holiday.

Breaking down the figures by destination type, searches for condominiums and resorts surged 303.1 percent during the 2024 Chuseok holiday and 812.4 percent last year — a gain roughly 2.7 times larger when the holiday was longer.

Searches for beaches and theme parks also saw their gains multiply, rising about 2.6 times and 2.5 times more, respectively, in the longer holiday year.

Searches for tourist attractions climbed 272.9 percent in 2024 and 474.9 percent last year. Jeonju Hanok Village recorded increases of 2.7 times and 6 times, while the Korean Folk Village drew 2.4 times and 3.9 times more searches. Searches for tourist attractions and cultural facilities in Seoul rose 51.3 percent in 2024 and 90.7 percent last year.

Shopping destination searches rose 43.4 percent during the 2024 holiday and 56.3 percent last year.

Department stores bucked the trend, however, with searches falling 12.8 percent in 2024 and edging up just 3.2 percent last year.

Searches for traditional markets jumped 298.6 percent in 2024 and 541.9 percent last year — a gain about 1.8 times larger in the longer holiday. Searches for cemeteries, reflecting the Chuseok tradition of visiting ancestral graves, rose 311.2 percent and 611.5 percent in the same years.

Tmap Mobility said the extended holiday effect reached well beyond overseas travel, driving broad increases in domestic movement across accommodation, tourism, traditional markets and grave visits.

The data underscores that domestic travel demand grows exponentially with holiday length — but the reverse holds just as clearly in years like this one, when the Chuseok break is only four days long.

A recent Hotels.com survey found that 60 percent of accommodation bookings for this year's Chuseok holiday were for short stays of two to three nights, up 10 percentage points from 50 percent last year when the holiday was longer. Eight of the top 10 most-searched destinations were in South Korea or Japan, with Tokyo ranking first.