Park Jin-hai primarily focuses on K-dramas, entertainment shows and actor interviews. Beyond that, she also pens articles covering the broader arts scene, with a particular emphasis on classical music, dance and various aspects of lifestyle. Since joining The Korea Times in 2013, she has made significant contributions in the realms of hallyu (Korean wave), industry news and international affairs.
Cheap package tours upset Chinese
Chinese tourists look around Gyeongbok Palace, Seoul, in this file photo. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea surpassed the 10 million mark in 2012. / Korea TImes
By Park Jin-hai
Complaints range from fraudulant agents to shopping ripoffs
By Park Jin-hai
Korea is experiencing a boom in international tourism, recently achieving a milestone mark of 10 million tourist arrivals, mainly from China and neighboring Asian countries, driven by the attractions of the “hallyu” or Korean wave.
But cheap inbound tour packages are threatening to tarnish Korea's image and potentially slow down the global “hallyu” trend.
Keen to attract tourists, the government’s tourism agency has worked to advertize the charms of Korea, but less attention is being given to the quality of the tours.
Examples of these are the “dirt-cheap” kpackage deals mainly targeting Chinese tourists, in which Korean tour agencies, due to fierce competition to attract tourists, cut deals with Chinese agencies at prices below breakeven costs.
“I desired to experience Korea. But I didn’t have enough time. During the 4-night-5-day stay, I visited five or six shopping malls, selling ginseng, laver and crystals,” said a Chinese woman, 32, asking not to be named.
“On the night we arrived, the tour guide didn’t take us to proper accommodation but to a ‘Jjimjil Bang’ (Korean sauna). And things were different from the schedule,” said another Chinese tourist with the surname Anjin.
A China-based travel agency employee, surnamed Zhu, said the six-day trip from Tianjin to Korea sells at around $400, including airfare, hotel and meals. Given that the average discount airfare is $200, this means that tourists can spend six days here on a meager budget of $200.
This is possible because Korean agencies managing inbound tourists bear the rest of the costs. The agencies are said to have their own means to recoup their supposed losses.
They resort to measures such as price-gouging, low quality accommodation, offering cheap meals and arranging visits to shops that give higher commissions to tour guides and other dodgy deals.
A "buffet restaurant" in Sajik-dong, central Seoul, is one restaurant reputed to serve low-quality meals to Chinese tourists.
“They only accept Chinese tourists on package deals, but not local people,” said a security guard of the building, throwing a puzzled look.
Despite its name, it is nothing close to a typical buffet. It has neither food stands nor people queuing with plates on their hands. Instead the shoddy looking restaurant has the owner positioned at the entrance, mainly to restrict access to locals.
Packed in, were a small band of Chinese clustered around a single dish. Everything is written in Chinese from menus to reservation books on the counter.
When the reporter of The Korea Times approached, the owner blocked the view and pushed them into the elevator, refusing to comment.
Also, instead of upscale duty-free shops, the unscrupulous tour guides bring tourists into small-scale duty-free shops, which offer them high commissions in return for bringing in the tour groups.
Commissions range from 20 to 30 percent for duty-free shops, while ginseng stores offer up to 50 percent, according to an industry watcher.
“In the worst cases, tourists have three brief stops, before spending the rest of the day at shops. Can you imagine visiting ginseng stores, health supplements shops, duty-free cosmetics shops, and then specific shops at the airport all in one day?” Zhu asked.
“Then other days include visits to a crystal factory, souvenir shops, and some more duty-free shops.”
As for accommodation, Zhu said even if the initial itinerary states that there will be a four-star hotel, however, the hotels are changed once the tourists arrive. Since the agencies never list the name of the hotels, the tourists are not really aware of the downgrade.
“This is not good for Korea because it creates a bad impression of Korea among foreign tourists,” she said.
All of these are taking a toll on the nation’s reputation. When Seoul City government asked tourists to score their visits on the scale of one to five, with five being the highest, in 2011, Chinese gave a 4.02 point on average.
The score is lower than those given by tourists who visit other places such as the United States, United Kingdom and the Middle East with 4.46, 4.42, and 4.41 respectively.
“The vicious circle persists ― receiving commission, cheap packages with “forced” optional tours and declining tourist satisfaction. This results in lowering the revisit rate among tourists,” Shim Weon-seop, researcher of the Tourism Policy Division of the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, said in a recent interview.
“It is imperative to deal with cheap package tours, to attract 20 million tourists,” he added.
According to the 2013 survey released by the Korea Tourism Organization, foreign tourists filed a total 897 complaints in 2012. Among them, tourists from greater China area comprising China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, reported 406 cases or 37 percent.
Of the total 406 cases reported by the Chinese tourists, complaints about tour agencies accounted for 60 cases or 15 percent, the second highest following complaints about shopping with 124 cases or 30 percent.