By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
The year was already shaping up to be a dismal one for Hwang Sun-bae, the 37-year-old head of a Seoul-based travel agency as the flu pandemic has hit the local traveling industry hard.
Hwang's company specializes in programs for locals, designing its products around domestic tourist attractions and historical sites, and making most of its revenue from weekend travelers and organizing field trips for companies and other organizations.
This isn't exactly a formula for success at a time when people, already reluctant to open their credit-crunched wallets, are thinking twice about stepping out of their homes.
"The word 'high-demand' season has become basically meaningless for us this year, as we have seen a sharp drop in orders," said Hwang, who believes that the company's revenue so far in the second-half of the year dropped nearly 30 percent compared to the same period last year.
"A lot of our business relies on companies, schools and other organizations, but this seems to be a time when organizations are trying hard not to make any reason for people to gather."
The spread of pandemic H1N1 influenza, commonly called swine flu, is having a crippling effect on the country's leisure sector, according to a government report, Tuesday.
Airlines, rail, hotels and amusement parks are just some of the businesses hammered by the growing number of people canceling their visits, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said. The flu fears are also resulting in empty tables at neighborhood restaurants and pubs.
Government officials are concerned that the downturn in travel and leisure may have a negative effect on the economy, which has just begun to rebound from the global economic turmoil. Moreover, the H1N1 outbreak is showing signs of becoming a full-blown epidemic here.
"The flu outbreak is beginning to hurt industries that are related to outdoor activities and spending, and should this trend continue it might have an effect on the growth rate of the national economy," a ministry official said.
The flu outbreak seems to be entering a new peak, with an average of 8,800 new cases confirmed every day last week, compared to the average of 4,400 cases in the previous week. Since mid-August, when the pandemic began taking hold, there have been 42 deaths in the country.
According to the ministry and Statistics Korea, previously the National Statistical Office, the country's travel industry contracted by nearly 25 percent year-on-year during the third quarter, and the sector's revenue in September dropped by nearly 32 percent compared to the same month last year.
Sales at hotels and resorts dipped 3 percent in the third quarter, compared to last year, while theme parks and public gardens saw a 7.6-percent decline in revenue during the same period, and an 11.6 percent drop during September alone.
Rail and bus transportation dipped 5.5 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, while taxi companies also suffered a nearly 10-percent drop in revenue during the July-September period, with commuters preferring to drive their own cars.
Sales at local pubs and restaurants decreased by 7 percent and 2.7 percent each, while sports-related businesses such as stadiums and racing arenas saw their sales go down by 5.7 percent.
The growing fears over the flu pandemic even seems to be cracking what has been previously considered unbreakable - Korean parents' zeal for the education of their children.
Sales at private academies, or "hagwon," dropped 7 percent during the third quarter with more parents letting their children stay at home. Perhaps, one of the few businesses seeing success under the swine flu cloud is hospitals, which saw their revenue rise more than 10 percent year-on-year during the third quarter.
Retailers of medical supplies also enjoyed a 4.3-percent bump in their sales during the same period.
A silver lining for the travel industry is that the flu pandemic is having a limited effect on the influx of foreign travelers. According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), about 730,000 foreign tourists visited the country in October, a 12.4-percent increase from the same month last year.
In the first nine months of this year, about 5.77 million foreign tourists visited Korea, up 15 percent from 5.02 million a year ago, with Japanese and Chinese travelers making up about 56 percent of the total.
The KTO believes that the country will exceed its early-year target of attracting 7.5 million foreign tourists to the country by the end of the year.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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