The number of foreign tourists visiting South Korea dropped by more than 20 percent last month from the same period last year.   

The Korea Tourism Organization said about 956-thousand foreigners visited South Korea last month, down by 21-point-seven percent from the same month last year. 

In particular, the number of Chinese visiting the country plummeted by 46 percent to 305-thousand from January of 2016, while the number of tourists from Hong Kong declined by 37-point-six percent. 

The number of Japanese traveling to South Korea increased by seven-point-nine percent, but it was mainly due to the base effect deriving from an unusually low number of Japanese tourists last year.