Tourism industry on alert over China's trip ban
South Korea's tourism industry is on alert as China has set out to prevent its people from traveling to Korea in protest against Seoul's deployment of a high-tech U.S. anti-missile battery, industry sources said Friday.
On Thursday, Beijing told major travel agencies in the country to stop selling tours to Korea in what is seen as its latest retaliatory act against Seoul pushing ahead with stationing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
China has expressed strong hostility toward the decision, saying it will be used to spy on its own military developments.
The effective travel ban will likely hit the local tourism industry hard, which depends heavily on Chinese tourists who spend big on shopping.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), 8.06 million Chinese tourists visited Korea last year. Data from travel agencies showed that about 60 percent of them traveled on their own, while the rest came in package tours. Of the 60 percent of the individual travelers, about half are presumed to have bought the ticket through a travel agency.
Since the ban applies to all trips sold by its travel agencies, Korea could see the number of inbound Chinese visitors be slashed by half, industry sources said.
"We have already seen Chinese demand for group tours shrink since the THAAD announcement. The overall growth in Chinese arrivals here has been sustained because individual travelers have increased," a travel agency official here said.
As much as the tourism is under strain, the restaurant and duty-free businesses that rely heavily on Chinese visitors are also expected to suffer a blow.
"It is too early to make any assumptions at this stage. We'll have to keep close tabs on the market," a KTO official said. The culture ministry here said it is working on countermeasures. (Yonhap)