After a nearly three-year hiatus, the famous South Korean band BTS is making a comeback — not only on the music charts, but also in global economic processes. It is expected that this will lead to economic growth in the country.
Quartz writes about this.
Six members of the group — Jin, Hoseok, Namjoon, Taehyung, Jimin, and Jungkook — have already completed their mandatory military service. And the seventh member Yoongi will return to civilian life in the coming days. This is not only a joy for the bandʼs fans, but also for investors, economists, and South Korean high-ranking officials.
In 2019, a report by the Hyundai Research Institute estimated that BTS’s contribution to the South Korean economy was over $4.65 billion annually. That’s equivalent to the contribution of nearly half a million average Korean workers. The researchers took into account not only sales of music albums and concert tickets, but also the promotion of tourism, Korean goods, and language learning.
When BTS performed a free concert in Busan in 2022 to support the city’s bid for the World Expo, the event drew more than 50 000 attendees. It’s estimated that the event generated more than $500 million in revenue for the city. And a post-holiday world tour could multiply those numbers several times over, Quartz notes.
The Korea Tourism Organization has repeatedly cited BTSʼ role in the growth of inbound tourism. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 8% of tourists cited BTS as one of the reasons for visiting the country. In early June, shares of HYBE, BTSʼ agency, rose 7% in just one day, reaching a 38-month high, as Taehyung, Namjoon, Jimin, and Jungkook returned from their military service.
Analysts see the groupʼs comeback as a positive signal not only for HYBE but also for the entire entertainment sector in South Korea. In particular, it could further spread K-pop culture.
BTSʼs plans are being kept secret for now, but itʼs most likely that a new music album will be released by the end of 2025. And only then will there be a world concert tour — potentially one of the highest-grossing in history.
BTSʼ previous tour, called Love Yourself: Speak Yourself, raised over $200 million — even without global reach. And the four-concert Permission to Dance on Stage series in Los Angeles in 2021 brought in over $100 million for the city. The four shows in Las Vegas brought in over $160 million thanks to tourism and related spending.
As an instrument of soft power, BTS rivals the Olympics and other global sporting events. After all, they are one of the drivers of the so-called “Korean Wave” (hallyu), which has radically changed global pop culture over the past decade. Analysts at the Korean company Hana Financial have called BTS a “strategic national asset”.
- The South Korean band BTS was founded in 2013 and consists of seven members. Over the years, it has become popular all over the world and has received the status of a Korean “cultural ambassador”. Currently, BTS’s videos are gaining a billion views each. The band itself creates songs in collaboration with popular American and European artists such as Coldplay and Halsey.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.