(Bloomberg) — Honolulu-based Christine Kim was early on the KPop Demon Hunters travel trend. In fairness, her trip to Seoul\u00a0with her husband and kids was already on the books before the Netflix film came out in June\u00a02025. The plan, initially at least, was to visit grandparents. But then Rumi, Zoey and Mira, the movie\u2019s protagonists, became her 5-year-old daughter\u2019s idols, and the itinerary got rewritten in real time. When they visited a jimjilbang, or Korean spa, and the Namsan Tower, the setting for the rival\u00a0Saja Boys\u2019s final show in the movie, the Kims\u2019 family trip turned into the ultimate bragging rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter seemed to be totally shocked that the places from the movie were real,\u201d Kim says\u00a0via text. \u201cShe was so excited, she was speechless.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t just her daughter who bought into the cultural moment. \u201cI bought my son a black hanbok and gat\u00a0[traditional clothing and hat] so he could be a Saja Boy\u00a0for Halloween,\u201d Kim recalls. \u201cAnd when we went to the Nike Store at Myeongdong, my daughter made a T-shirt with a magpie bird on it because of the KPop Demon Hunters character.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of late 2025,\u00a0KPop Demon Hunters\u00a0remained Netflix\u2019s most-watched original film of all time with more than 500 million views. In case you don\u2019t have small children or somehow managed to escape the phenomenon, the animated action-musical produced by Sony Pictures Animation follows\u00a0Huntrix, a\u00a0K-pop girl group whose chart-topping hits help them take down demons that threaten humanity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
If it was the critical and commercial hit that nobody saw coming, as Korean-Canadian animator Maggie Kang recently told Bloomberg News\u2019 Mishal Husain in a lengthy interview, it\u2019s also now becoming the travel catalyst that nobody saw coming. According to data from Trip.com, in the three months after\u00a0the movie\u2019s release, global flight bookings to South Korea\u00a0climbed 25% over the same period the year before, in what could be the latest film-driven travel obsession. (The stats don\u2019t tease out the motivations for travel.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
After all, Korea was already booming as a destination among international tourists. But there are reasons to believe that KPDH\u00a0has\u00a0at least something to do with the spike. The broader hallyu phenomenon, also referred to as the Korean Wave, has clearly driven the rising global popularity of Korean culture and its connections to tourism.<\/p>\n
Boy-band BTS\u00a0has been a hallyu headliner since 2018, drawing hundreds of thousands of fans to Seoul for its concerts. Best picture winner Parasite\u00a0and streaming thriller\u00a0Squid Game played a role\u00a0after their debuts in 2019 and 2021; girl-band Blackpink has had similar international success. The popularity of Korean skin-care and beauty videos, consumed mostly on TikTok by Generation Z, has also inspired plenty of long-haul vacations. KPDH\u2019s influence adds to all of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In July 2025, the month following the debut of the hit song Golden\u00a0on Spotify, according to\u00a0Seoul\u2019s city government, 1.36 million international travelers visited\u00a0the capital city, 23.1% more than the year before. That immediate growth was attributed to tourists from China, Japan, Taiwan and the US, with the government saying their trips were \u201cfueled by the KPop Demon Hunters craze,\u201d a possible reflection of how the movie broke out regionally before becoming a broader, international phenomenon in the US and beyond.<\/p>\n
This upward trend continued in the following months, helping South Korea achieve a record-breaking 18.9 million foreign tourists in 2025, according to data from the country\u2019s tourism board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That tourism spike may well outlast the movie\u2019s initial burst of popularity, given that awards season is keeping it fresh in audiences\u2019 minds. On Jan. 11, KPDH took home Golden Globes in the categories of best animated motion picture and best original song in a motion picture; it also won\u00a0best song written for visual media at the 2026\u00a0Grammys and swept the animation-centric Annie Awards with 10 out of 10 possible wins.\u00a0Now it\u2019s heavily favored to take\u00a0two Oscars on March 15. On March 12, Netflix confirmed a sequel is in the works.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Considering that long-haul trips\u00a0take time to plan and tourism trends and statistics are often revealed on a\u00a0quarterly or semi-annual basis, the ripples of KPDH\u2019s influence in the travel sphere are just beginning to take shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neil Hassall, who runs the Facebook group South Korea Travel Tips and Planning says KPop Demon Hunters fans have boosted\u00a0the popularity of his group in a way he hasn\u2019t seen since at least Squid Game.\u00a0In June 2025 he had 65,000 members, he says; by January 2026, that number\u00a0had almost doubled to\u00a0120,000.<\/p>\n
In Seoul, Bukchon Hanok Village \u2014 the neighborhood of traditional homes where characters Rumi and Jinu meet up for the first time \u2014 has emerged as a must-visit destination for more than just architecture and history buffs.\u00a0The movie\u2019s fans have helped make\u00a0it the setting for one of the top trending\u00a0Seoul tours on Trip.com. Searches for the National Museum of Korea on Trip.com have also increased 34% year-over-year since the film\u2019s release, as fans flock\u00a0to the museum\u2019s gift shop to buy movie merchandise.<\/p>\n
Creatrip, a Korean travel platform that helps international visitors book restaurants, K-beauty services and hanbok rentals, has also benefited from the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters. Bookings for jimjilbangs and seshin\u00a0\u00a0services, two types of bathhouse scrubs seen in the movie, were up 115% in the summer months after the movie\u2019s release, compared with the spring months immediately prior. (It\u2019s worth noting that spring and fall are usually a more popular time for travelers to visit Korea than summer.) During the same months of the year prior, they\u2019d grown by just\u00a017%.<\/p>\n
Medical clinics focusing on acupuncture, cupping and a type of herbal medicine called hanyak \u2014 which Rumi tries to use to heal her\u00a0voice \u2014 were up 409% in 2025 compared to the year prior, also according to Creatrip.<\/p>\n
Data from the Berlin-based excursions booking site Get Your Guide shows similar growth. Takao Nishina, the company’s regional manager for Japan and South Korea, says tour bookings for locations featured in the film \u2014 including Gyeongbokgung Palace, Sky Lotte World Tower, N Seoul Tower and Bukchon Hanok Village \u2014 have grown by more than 350% in 2025 compared to the year prior.<\/p>\n
Pop-up cafes,\u00a0character meet-and-greets in the Brooklyn-esque neighborhood of Seongsu-dong and other directly tied\u00a0experiences are\u00a0springing up to meet the moment.\u00a0Kuala Lumpur-based physician\u00a0Irina Ishak took her family to one such KPDH pop-up in Seongsu-dong in December, and considers it a highlight of their trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids know all the characters and the moments in the movie,\u201d Ishak says\u00a0via text. \u201cThe pop-up was three floors with character cutouts and scenes to take a picture at each corner. There were a few interactive corners like finding a glow-in-a-dark Derpy cat print using a torch. The kids absolutely loved it.\u201d\u00a0 View this post on Instagram<\/p>\n
Creatrip chief executive officer\u00a0Haemin Yim believes the KPop Demon Hunters fervor is unlike anything Korea has seen in previous hallyu-driven tourism waves. In the past if people were coming for K-pop, she says, their goal was to see concerts, visit K-pop group agencies and go to cafes for \u201cfandom-driven pilgrimage.\u201d The appeal this film has had with English speakers \u2014 travelers from the US, UK, Canada and Australia \u2014 has given this wave much broader global traction\u00a0and deeper engagement with aspects of Korean culture that stretch well beyond singing and dancing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery major cultural element in the film \u2014 hanbok, jimjilbang, gimbap, samgyetang, K-pop dance, traditional medicine \u2014 is something a tourist can directly book and experience in Korea. The film essentially functions as a 90-minute showcase of Korean daily life, except it\u2019s wrapped in a story that 500 million people watched,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Set-jetting, the trend in which people plan trips to places they\u2019ve seen on screen, has been dominant elsewhere, to the point of causing overcrowding\u00a0in some places.\u00a0Hallstatt, Austria, has become an overtourism poster child ever since families realized it was the real-life inspiration for the kingdom of Arendelle in Frozen. And Disney\u2019s Encanto has driven more moderate tourism traffic to Colombia\u2019s coffee region, a place that was far off the radar for many international travelers beforehand. View this post on Instagram<\/p>\n
In Seoul, KPop Demon Hunters\u2019\u00a0fandom has not yet stoked concerns of overtourism, and it may never do so. Whereas most film- and television-inspired travelers focus their attention on a small number of highly recognizable locations, KPDH fans have myriad\u00a0ways to step into Rumi, Mira and Zoey\u2019s demon-slashing shoes. The\u00a0way in which the film is spreading fans out to a variety of sites and experiences may in fact make it a poster child for what sustainable set-jetting could look like.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kim, the Honolulu-based mom of two, says the movie is also trailblazing in other ways. \u201cThe artwork is beautiful, the music is great and it filled a void,\u201d she says. \u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of movies with girl super heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Updates with Get Your Guide tour growth in 16th paragraph, and awards wins in 10th.)<\/p>\n