KoreaToday KR Pass, World’s Hottest, Least Discovered Rail Deal
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
Many of travel buffs and backpackers may be familiar with the Eurorail Pass and JR Pass, unlimited train travel tickets available for tourists at a bargain price.
The passes are a privilege only international travelers can enjoy much like duty free shopping. Though the majority of inbound tourists are unaware of it, Korea too has an all-you-can-ride train pass, called the KR Pass. It is far cheaper and its coverage is incredibly more comprehensive than any other tourist-only-train pass in any other country worldwide.
The program was launched in 1999 in line with the government's effort to attract more tourists to the country and help smaller cities like Incheon and Yeosu get a much-deserved chance to show off their beauty to the world.
You may wonder how great this deal is to be named the world's hottest deal. Simply put, for 60,700 won ($50), the pass enables young travelers to hop onto any passenger train in Korea, including KTX bullet trains, for three-day travel without any limits.
Given that the KTX, which travels at 300km per hour, can go from one end of the country to the other in less than three hours and all major cities and towns of Korea are serviced with train stops, the KR Pass is something that should be irresistible to budget-conscious savvy travelers.
The sales of this pass, however, have been staggeringly low compared to the European and Japanese varieties. Only 4,860 KR Passes were sold last year, when Korea saw nearly seven million foreign travelers flocking to the country. In comparison, nearly 500,000 Eurorail Passes were sold in the year.
So why are the sales of the KR Pass so much lower? Is it because the 10-year-old KR Pass has much less appeal than the European one? The answer again is "No."
The cheapest Eurail Global Pass, which enables tourists to travel to 21 European countries, comes with the hefty price tag of $469 for those up to 25 years old. Even the three-day Eurail One Country Pass for the young is several times more expensive than the KR Pass.
For instance, the single country pass for Finland, where the total length of the high-speed railroad is only 60 kilometers more than four times shorter than that of Korea and whose high-speed trains are more than 50 kilometers per hour slower, is sold for $185. The same three-day passes for Spain and Sweden are over $200.
It costs 102,400 won ($85) for a round-trip from Seoul to the southern port city of Busan by KTX, where the annual number of international tourists surpassed 2 million. But then again, why so few foreigners are using it?
Lack of Information on KR Pass
Thomas Kim, vice president of Peoria Christian School, in Peoria, Il. comes to Korea every summer with his students for voluntary work. After completing a volunteer project at the Amerasian Christian Academy (ACA) in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, where many students are biracial abandoned by American soldiers stationed at a nearby USFK military base, they decided to travel around the country for four days, including Busan and Mokpo.
The KR Pass would have been a big money saver, but they purchased a one-way Seoul-to-Busan KTX ticket, and received a 10 percent group travel discount. Each one of them had to pay more than 45,000 won and pay the same amount to come back to Seoul for Thursday's flight. Why didn't he and his students purchase the KR Pass?
"This is my fifth consecutive year to visit Korea with our school students. Had I known that there was such a ticket available, I would have, of course, purchased it and would also have planned for more extensive travel," said Kim. He added that the information should be made more widely available to international travelers such as him.
KR Pass has long been used by a only handful of tourists who know that it exists, and have purchased it before. The lack of publicity is obviously one of the reasons for poor sales. Kim Jung-hak, a senior public relations official of KORAIL, also admits this.
However, he argues that KORAIL has been constantly accused of lax management and threatened with privatization. It cannot afford to pay a great deal of budget to promote a product that is possibly the least purchased and least profitable.
"I understand that it's a wonderful program created to boost the local tourism. But unfortunately I have to say that our budget has been slashed by 30 percent and we don't have enough money to run advertisements even for a popular, profitable travel pass," Kim said. He repeatedly said, however, that lack of promotion of the KR Pass is not the government's responsibility.
"Though KORAIL is a government-run body, we also have to remain competitive in order to survive. It is no different from any other business that has to squeeze limited resources and spend them wisely."
Where to Buy KR Pass?
The ticket can be purchased online on Korea Rail's official Web site or from STA Travel agencies around the world.
STA Travel is virtually the exclusive-offline KR Pass dealer as only three other travel agencies have been authorized to offer it. But purchasing a KR Pass from STA travel agencies is not so easy as it may sound since many of them are not even aware that they have a great product to offer.
The Korea Times has made inquiries about the pass Friday to three STA London branches listed as the official sellers of the KR Pass on KORAIL's Web site. All three branches said they have yet to sell a single ticket this year.
The first branch said that their contract with KORAIL has expired. The second replied that the ticket was unavailable, but later looked it up on their system and found it. The third also failed to notice that they were the authorized seller of the KR Pass.
"I've asked around the office to see if anyone has sold one recently. We did have an enquiry a few weeks ago, but it seems our company has ceased selling them," Anna Walkinshaw, a student travel specialist at the third branch, said.
"It seems really good value for money, but there isn't much awareness about it here."
The KR Pass is "a ticket which is exclusively used for a foreigner. Foreign clients are able to buy KR PASS exchange ticket at overseas distributor and KORAIL homepage," KORAIL's English Web site states.
Under the title, Limitation of Use, it further elaborates that Korean nationals cannot buy the KR Pass in broken English and with typos. "KR PASS is only available for foreigner-exclusive railroad, and clients with Korean citizenship cannot use this pass. Only if the Korean (with PR passport) client has foreign denizenship or long-stay visa, then the client is able to use this pass," it reads.
Greg Wharton, a backpacker from Brisbane, Australia, considered himself as a perfect candidate to purchase the KR Pass. Upon arrival in Busan Saturday, he tried to purchase the pass from the KORAIL Web site; but to no avail. He belatedly found that there are some fine lines at the bottom of the reservation page, saying the pass has to be purchased at least five days before entry into Korea.
"I didn't realize that there was a catch until I managed to find the reservation page and read the fine print," Wharton said. "The link is difficult to find and many wouldn't click on it unless they are suspicious enough to find hidden rules that government-run organizations make."
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), which introduces the KR Pass on its Web site, also did not make it clear that tourists must purchase the pass before arrival. A senior KTO official, however, apologized for failing to provide essential information and immediately updated the organization's Web site after an interview with The Korea Times Sunday.
About KR Pass reservation, the KTO Web site now warns, "The government-run tourism body does not endorse, has not verified nor is liable for any information contained within this page of the Web site."
The five-day rule hampers young Western travelers like Wharton from buying the pass, even if they were informed well in advance.
"The KR Pass seems to be something that backpackers like me wouldn't buy. I don't make plans many days in advance when I travel," Wharton said.
But what Wharton didn't know was the fact that the STA Travel agency issues KR Pass e-tickets regardless of the entry date of travelers.
"I have never heard of the condition. But what I'm certain is that we can issue the ticket even on the day of departure," said Timothy Su, a marketing manager of the STA Travel in Singapore, which sell three to four KR Passes a month.
Slow Offline Sales
According to Lee Ji-young, director of Kises Tour, which is also the Seoul branch of STA Travel, the number of KR Passes that the world's largest-youth-travel organization managed to sell in 2008 was merely 208.
Lee argued that the unattractiveness of Korea as a tourist destination is one of the major reasons for slow sales at STA Travel rather than the lack of promotion. However, the latest data show that Korea is no longer a backward country in tourism.
In fact, a 2008 Nielsen survey found that people from many Asian countries, including China, Japan and Thailand, consider Seoul as one of the most ideal tourist destinations for travel.
According to the 2008 UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, the number of foreign visitors to Korea is even higher than those going to Sweden or Australia, which are widely known as ideal tourist destinations.
In this regard, Richard Turton, director of Corn Product International, said that he suspects KORAIL is intentionally discouraging foreigners from purchasing the unlimited travel pass.
"I makes business trips to Seoul on average five times a year but I've never heard of such a pass. I'm sure that the pass was developed to attract more tourists to Korea and create revenue elsewhere like through shopping and improving the national brand image." Turton said. "When I go to foreigner-only casinos in Korea, all I have to bring is a passport. If they are sincerely willing to give the pass to foreigners, wouldn't the passport provide enough information that I'm a foreign visitor?"
Who Makes Hidden Conditions?
Choi Eun-seok, a general manager of business development at KORAIL and the creator of the KR Pass, claims that he takes pride in helping the Korean tourism industry to prosper.
Choi argues that KORAIL has been sincere in making the KR Pass readily accessible to foreign visitors.
When asked why KORAIL has failed to properly notify people of the five-day rule, Choi surprisingly said that even people who are already in Korea are eligible to purchase the pass as long as he or she purchases it at least five days before using it.
He added that he has issued e-tickets to anyone who complained about the matter and the unknown flexible rule applies to any other foreigners here.
Choi, however, says that foreigners who have stayed in Korea more than six months are no longer eligible to buy the KR Pass, another hidden rule, which is not mentioned on the KORAIL and updated KTO Web sites.
Nonetheless, Choi is upbeat about the prospects for the pass. "This is a great travel deal that you cannot find anywhere else in the world. We forecast sales to soar to 100,000 per year by 2012."
Given that the sales of the Eurorail Pass increases on average 5 percent each year, what would make Choi is convinced that those of the KR Pass will increase 12,700 percent in five years?
Meanwhile, KORAIL told The Korea Times that it will revamp its English Web site in September and introduce one-day unlimited passes from next year.