South Korea sees ease in tourism affairs

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

In spite of continuing a sequence of financial and geopolitical disagreements with China, South Korea is seeing a softening of tourism affairs. Chinese experts have lately taken away a long-lasting prohibition on group visits to South Korea, encouraging Seoul’s Tourism Ministry to present a multi-faceted plan targeted toward enticing more than 1.5 million Chinese travelers by the end of this year.

Previous to the pandemic, South Korea greeted almost 5 million Chinese tourists yearly. The numbers plunged intensely, primarily by the reason of Beijing’s 2017 embargo on collective visits. It was an initiative taken in response to South Korea’s placement of the U.S. THAAD missile defence arrangement, and afterwards owing to the pandemic. With the taking away of the travel injunction three weeks before, the Tourism Ministry is enthusiastically working to renew concentration among Chinese holidaymakers.

Exploiting a current Chinese cruise ship halt to Jeju Island, an important tourist place, South Korea is
initiating numerous inducements. These comprise inaugurating new visa submission centers, increasing
air ways, and proposing monetary inducements like VAT or visa fee repayments for group reservations.

Furthermore, tourism programs precisely intended toward catering to Chinese penchants are being
developed, as is the incorporation of predominant payment platforms like WeChat Pay and  Alipay .

Targeted toward improving GDP by 0.16 points, the government has a determined program to attract 2
million Chinese tourists by this year end. Nevertheless, there are apprehensions regarding how this
inventiveness might be acknowledged nationally, given the increasing anti-China thoughts of late among the South Korean public.

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