South Korea saw its profit from tourism slump 11 percent in the first half of this year as the number of visitors plummeted following an outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Foreign visitors to the country spent 6.6 trillion won ($5.5 billion) in the January-June period, down 10.8 percent from the 7.4 trillion won spending posted in the second half of last year, according to the data by the Bank of Korea.

The data covers the spending of foreigners who are not local residents and excludes spending by companies.

The decline marks the biggest drop since a 1.1 trillion won fall in the second half of 2009, when the number of visitors sharply plunged due to the weak Japanese yen.

The decline coincides with the MERS outbreak, which was first reported in late May and expanded into the largest infection outside of Saudi Arabia, claiming 36 lives here.

The number of inbound Chinese and Japanese visitors nearly halved between May and June. The overall number of foreigners visiting the country tumbled 11.9 percent in the first half compared with the second half of last year.

Meanwhile, separate data also showed that the per-capita spending of foreign visitors reached $1,216 in the January-August period, down 4.4 percent from the same period last year. (Yonhap)