South Koreans swap ancestral rites for Japan getaways this Lunar New Year

For many South Korean families, traditional holiday gatherings may be getting smaller this Lunar New Year, but suitcases are getting bigger.More than half of flight searches this holiday are for Japan, signalling a sharp shift away from the domestic travel boom that defined the holiday last year.Flight search data from Skyscanner shows Japan accounts for 51.6 per cent of all Lunar New Year holiday queries by South Korean travellers, with Fukuoka leading at 23.3 per cent, followed closely by Osaka at 23.2 per cent and Tokyo at 13.7 per cent.The only domestic destination to crack the top 10 is Jeju, at 11.6 per cent – a steep drop from last year, when domestic destinations including Busan, Seoul and Jeju held the top three spots and made up 57 per cent of all searches.The reversal is driven in part by the calendar.In 2025, an extra government-designated holiday created a nine-day break without requiring any annual leave, encouraging families to complete traditional ancestral rites before adding a domestic trip.