Foreign Visitors Complain More About Korea Than Japan, Led by Digital Services
About 11% of English-language posts on travelling in Korea contained a complaint, against about 7% for Japan. Complaints clustered most in digital services, such as sign-up screens that demand a Korean phone number, and payment also made the top four categories.
11% vs. 7%, and where the complaints pile up
At the National Assembly's culture committee audit on Oct. 23, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yoon-deok released a Yanolja Research comparison of travel complaints in Korea and Japan. Posts containing at least one complaint made up about 11% for Korea and about 7% for Japan.
In Korea, digital services led at 27.8%, followed by tourist information 16.4%, transport 13.1% and payment 12.0%. Together those four account for 69.3% of all complaints. In Japan, transport came first at 23%.
Stuck on the first screen
The examples are specific. A sign-up that needs a Korean mobile number, an overseas card that is declined, Apple Pay that does not work. Some people got stuck at the payment step when buying train tickets, or were blocked as a 'suspicious IP' when opening Korean apps from abroad.
Getting around was another sore spot: Google Maps is of limited use, Naver Map and T map were described as confusing, transport cards could only be topped up with cash, and some visitors said places such as Myeongdong asked for cash only.
The sample is English-language Reddit posts
The Kyunghyang Shinmun reports the analysis covered English-language Reddit posts about travel in Korea and Japan from January 2023 to December 2025. In 7 of 11 categories, negative sentiment toward Korea was stronger than toward Japan.
WikiTree cautions that the figures show the share of posts containing complaints, not a direct measure of overall tourist satisfaction.
The government: "not one ministry's problem"
Kim argued that visitors who arrive expecting the Korea of K-dramas can feel unwelcome and called for a government-wide fix. Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young acknowledged the ministry cannot solve many of these issues alone, said ministries are drafting remedies through the presidential National Tourism Strategy Meeting, and promised concrete measures soon.
Going only by the complaints in the report, a little cash and a second payment method in your bag is the easy precaution for a trip to Korea.
Sources & context
2026-10-25T00:19:36.624Z
The Kyunghyang Shinmun (Oct. 24, 2026) ↗Hyundai Economy Daily ↗WikiTree ↗Wikimedia Commons ↗Photo credit
G41rn8 (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 4.0Tourists in hanbok taking photos at Gyeongbokgung Palace (taken in 2016; a file photo unrelated to the survey). Photo by G41rn8, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons