Seoul to Monitor Cheap Tour Package
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
The tourism authorities will conduct inspections on overseas tour programs and continually disclose the results to the public in an effort to prevent the risk of substandard packages and related accidents from occurring.
The measure came after last month's plane crash in Cambodia which claimed 13 Koreans' lives.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the Korea Tourism Association and the Korea Association of Travel Agents (KATA) have come up with joint safety measures.
KTO's branches in Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur will soon start inspecting tour programs of Southeast Asian countries, near Cambodia where the accident occurred. They will interview local travel guides, as they have the most reliable information concerning airline safety and other forms of transportation in the region.
The collected information will be disclosed within the month's time.
``Many tourists rely on travel agencies in getting travel information. That being the case, it is possible that agencies do not fully disclose the truth of the country or the tour programs that are disadvantageous to tourists. We'll collect `correct' and `detailed' data through KTO branches and overseas Korean culture centers and make it available to the public,'' said Kim Chan, director general of the ministry's tourism bureau.
The KATA will also examine travel agencies' overseas tour programs and provide travelers with information about what kind of packages are suspicious or unreliable in terms of safety. It will regularly update the data on safety, frequency of accidents and security of countries. The information will be available on Web sites from all of the four tourism bodies as early as this month.
The ministry will also create a category of ``safety'' as a standard in selecting good tourist programs and travel agencies.
Kim said that, unlike the current policy for oversea travelers that focuses primarily on the follow-up measures of accidents, the new amendment will concentrate on the prevention of accidents.
Travelers will be provided with online and offline information on unsafe regions and emergency contact numbers to Korean embassies, travel agencies and airlines in foreign countries, through leaflets and Web sites of KTO and the ministry.
``We'll also set up network with travel guides and agencies in overseas tourist destinations and give them safety education,'' Kim said.