Tourism deficit soaring

By Kim Rahn

Koreans are spending more during their overseas trips, while foreign travelers to Korea are spending less than before, leading to a wider deficit in tourism balance.

More and more Koreans are taking overseas trips, while the number of Japanese visitors is decreasing fast due to the weakening yen.

These factors resulted in a huge deficit in tourism balance, and the deficit is likely to increase along with the summer vacation season.

According to the Bank of Korea and the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute on Sunday, Korea reported $1.59 billion in tourism deficit for the first five months of the year, more than 11-fold the figure during the same period of last year.

The deficit came largely because Korean travelers spent $7 billion for their overseas stay, up by 14.3 percent from last year. It was the largest spending for the January-May period.

On the contrary, foreign travelers spent $5.4 billion, 9.6 percent down from a year before.

By May, Korea had a tourism deficit for 12 straight months.

For the first five months of the year, more than 6 million Koreans went on overseas visits, up by 9.5 percent.

“The increase has been driven by a growing number of international flights by low-cost carriers and the strong Korean won against the dollar and the yen,” an official of the institute said.

“With the vacation season approaching, more people are forecast to head abroad. We expect nearly 15 million Koreans to take overseas trips this year,” he said.

Last year, the number of Koreans traveling overseas was 13.7 million.

The number of foreign visitors to Korea also rose for the January-May period, but only by 1.8 percent to 4.4 million. Although the number of Chinese travelers hiked, that of Japanese visitors plunged by 24.9 percent to 373,000.

“The number of Japanese began dropping last September after former President Lee Myung-bak said Japanese Emperor Akihito must apologize for the atrocities committed during the 1910-1945 colonial rule should he want to visit Korea,” the official said.

“And the situation got worse as the yen fell against the won. Japanese travelers, even if they come, do not spend as much money as before,” he said.

He said a changing trip trend is another factor, as the institute’s recent survey showed the ratio of foreigners coming for shopping purposes decreased from last year’s 14.5 percent to 12.6 percent.

The survey also showed foreigners’ satisfaction with their travel here dropped in almost all categories including tourist destination, tourist information service, lodging, food, shopping and immigration.

“We think the low satisfaction resulted from cheap package programs for Chinese travelers, in which they are forced to visit many shopping centers rather than tourist attractions,” the official said.