SEOUL, May 17 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's overseas credit card spending hit a record quarterly high in the first quarter as a record number of locals went abroad for travel, central bank data showed Thursday.

Overseas spending by locals with plastic cards, including credit, check and debit cards, reached a quarterly peak of 5.07 billion U.S. dollars in the January-March quarter, up 26 percent from the same quarter of last year, according to the Bank of Korea.

A total of 7.43 million South Korean people traveled abroad during the quarter, on which the winter vacation and the Lunar New Year holiday fell. It was up 8.2 percent from the previous quarter.

The South Korean currency's ascent to the U.S. dollar encouraged people to spend more at overseas tourist spots.

The number of plastic cards used in the quarter was 16,438,000, up 12.4 percent compared with the prior quarter.

Overseas spending per plastic card averaged 308 U.S. dollars in the March quarter, up 1.5 percent from a year ago.