[Young journalist Sookyung Her] ‘Pharmacy shopping’ is surging among the foreign tourists in South Korea. Instead of buying edications such as cold medicine and painkillers, pharmacy has been a new destination for K-Beauty·Health products like regenerative creams, skincare products, and dietary supplements.

Orange Square, the operator of WOWPASS, a platform for payment·Commerce for foreign tourists visiting South Korea has analysed the payment data during the first half year for 3 years(January-June), the result was that there was approximately 10 times increase of Korean pharmacy payment amount. During the same time, the number of payments has also increased by approximately 5 times. 

An interesting point is that the payment amount is about 2 times more than the number of payments. This shows that not only are more foreign tourists visiting pharmacies, but they are also spending more per visit.

The foreigner’s pharmacy shopping was focused on Seoul, where visitors mostly stay. For the last half year of 2026, 80% of pharmacy payments were found in Myeong-dong, Hongdae, Gangnam, and Seongsu. In particular, 40% of the payment was found in Myeong-dong. From outside Seoul, there were lots of visits to major tourist destinations like Busan, Incheon, and Jeju, which also showed high usage of pharmacy.

The purpose of foreigners finding pharmacies has also changed a lot. The result of approximately 400,000 ‘Place Review’, from WOWPASS, among the foreigners that stated their purpose of visiting, 72% of them said that they have visited to purchase beauty, health, or dietary supplement products. Only 28% have said that they have visited pharmacies to purchase medications to treat illnesses or symptoms.

According to the real reviews, foreigners visited pharmacies to buy regenerative creams after medical or cosmetic treatments in Korea bought dietary supplements and cosmetics as well. This was caused by the tester system and foreign language assistant.

These changes were also found in products that were found mostly by foreigners. The products that were most mentioned by reviews were skin-treatment cream such as regenerative cream followed by acne treatments, dietary supplements and health functional foods, skincare products, and artificial tears and eye health supplements. However, products like illness treatments were not even on the top 5 items.

Some foreigners shared pharmacies as shopping information. They share pharmacies that have foreign language assistants, offer famous products at relatively low prices while sharing information about promotions and certain events by review.

The ‘place review’ from WOWPASS is only available for people who used a WOWPASS card. Until now, visitors from more than 110 countries have left reviews.

The official from Orange Square has said that “Pharmacies are now places for K-beauty and health related products not only a place for purchasing medications.” And added, “It seems like this type of spending will spread more, particularly in areas that are frequently visited by foreign tourists.”

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