More than 660-thousand Japanese tourists visited South Korea in the first five months of the year, accounting for the largest portion of foreign travelers to the country.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization on Sunday, 666-thousand Japanese tourists visited the country during the period, taking up 19-point-two percent of the total number of foreign travelers.

The figure soared five-thousand-725 percent from a year earlier and marks the 48-point-five percent level of the figure logged in the same period of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourists from Japan are taking up the largest portion of the monthly number of foreign travelers to the country for the sixth consecutive month since December last year.

Of the 663-thousand Japanese tourists, excluding flight attendants, 65-point-seven percent were women, while 34-point-two percent were men.

Meanwhile, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, two-point-58 million South Koreans traveled to Japan in the January-May period, accounting for the largest percentage of foreign travelers to the country at some 30 percent.