Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Pandemic-hit tourism industry calls for gov't subsidies for recovery
Workers of Korea's tourism sector wave banners during the first-ever group action by the industry in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. Over 1,000 people gathered to call for government action to revive the tourism industry hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
Over 1,000 people working in the country's travel and tourism sector gathered in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, calling on the government to provide subsidies to help them recover from pandemic-induced losses.
Seventeen tourism associations of metropolitan cities and provinces across the country, including its Seoul branch, the Seoul Tourism Association (STA), occupied the streets of Yeouido for the rally starting at 2 p.m. Wednesday. It was the first-ever large-scale demonstration staged by the country's tourism industry.
The past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic were “like a nightmare” for the workers in the industry, according to STA President Yang Moo-seung. The industry members have fully complied with the government's quarantine and social distancing measures. But the industry, which was hit the hardest according to the protesters, continued on despite facing bankruptcy and exclusion from government subsidies, he said.
The number of foreign visitors to Korea peaked in 2019 with 17.5 million, according to the Ministry of Justice. The figure fell sharply to 2.5 million in 2020 and declined further to 900,000 last year, which is only 6 percent of the pre-pandemic level.
As a result, the domestic tourism industry lost an estimated 173 trillion won ($121.7 million), including foreign travelers' expenditure of 7 trillion won ($4.9 billion), said Park In-chul, representative of the hotel business committee at the STA.
Over 40,000 businesses in the industry experienced sales decreases averaging over 80 percent during the pandemic, and their recovery stands at only 10 percent of pre-pandemic levels, Park said.
Representatives of tourism associations stage an ice-breaking performance during a demonstration calling for government subsidies for a recovery in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. The ice cubes read in Korean, “Recovery of tourism's industry ecosystem.” Yonhap
The representative pointed out that the industry sees a growing lack of human resources, as over 20,000 tourism majors graduating from 147 universities over the last two years choose to find jobs in different fields due to the industry's low prospects.
However, the industry has been excluded from the government's compensation plan.
Last October, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups decided to compensate small and medium-sized enterprises for up to 80 percent of their losses caused by COVID-19 social distancing measures. In February, the rival parties agreed to amend the relevant law to include the travel and tourism industry, but the plan amounted to nothing with the inauguration of the new president in May.
The group demanded the government and lawmakers cover the damage experienced by the tourism industry by amending the relevant law and help restore its industrial ecosystem. Also, the group called to expand the visa waiver programs and simplify the issuance process to revive the industry.
Rep. Song Jae-ho and Rep. Min Byoung-dug of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Rep. Ryu Ho-jeong of the Justice Party joined the demonstration and promised to revise the compensation act.
On Sept. 15, Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a plan to attract 30 million foreign visitors by 2026. The number is nearly 80 percent of the country's entire inbound tourists in 2019, when Seoul was ranked as the 11th-most-visited city in the Global Destination Cities Index with 11.2 million foreign visitors.
The government's plan, however, is not feasible considering today's dire situation where the industry's infrastructure is broken, Yang said.