Outbound travelers to hit record in summer

By Lee Hyo-sik

Staff reporter

A record number of travelers are expected to fly overseas during the upcoming summer vacation season as more individuals can afford to spend extra cash abroad on the improving economy and the strengthening of the Korean won against the dollar and other foreign currencies.

Most travel industry watchers expect this year's figure to easily exceed the previous record set in 2007.

Hana Tour, the nation's largest travel agency, said Tuesday that as of Monday, a total of 99,836 individuals have made reservations this month for overseas tours scheduled in July and August, surpassing the 99,776 who bought tour packages in June 2007.

In July and August 2007, 117,049 and 123,099 individuals traveled abroad, respectively, breaking the agency's previous records. But Hana expects this year's figure during the July to August period to set new records if its reservations continue to rise at the current pace.

"We expect more than 250,000 Koreans to travel overseas via our agency during the summer holiday season, exceeding the 2007 figure. The majority of them are heading to China, Japan and Southeast Asian countries," Hana Tour spokesman Cho Il-sang said.

"Additionally, more tourists are expected to visit Europe, partly due to the weaker euro against the Korean won."

Cho said the number of overseas travelers declined in 2008 and 2009 as a result of the worldwide flu epidemics, the global economic crisis and other unfavorable travel conditions.

"We experienced a temporary setback in the last two years. But more and more Koreans will travel to foreign countries this year and beyond."

Mode Tour, the nation's second largest tour marketer, and other travel agencies are also benefiting from the current overseas tour boom as the number of reservations for outbound travel surged over the previous year.

Korean Air and other air carriers are also posting much higher airplane reservation rates bound for China and Southeast Asian countries.

"We were flooded with air travelers in the summer of 2007. We are not sure whether we can beat the previous record. But we expect outgoing travelers in July and August to grow by more than 10 percent, compared to the same two-month period last year," a Korean Air spokesman said.

올 여름 해외 여행객 수 사상 최고치 예상

경제가 나아지고 한화의 대미화 환율이 강세를 보임에 따라 일반인들의 해외 여행이 이번 여름 방학 중 사상 최고치에 이를 전망이다.

대부분의 여행 업자들은 올해 수치가 2007년의 기록을 쉽게 깰 수 있을 것이라고 예상하고 있다.

2007년 7월과 8월에는 각 각 11,7049명과 12,3099명이 해외로 여행을 떠났으며, 이는 모두 예전의 기록을 깬 수치들이다. 하지만 하나 투어는 만약 7, 8월 예약율이 이처럼 지속적으로 높아진다면 새로운 기록을 세울 수 있을 것이라 예상하고 있다.

국내 최대 여행사인 하나 투어에 따르면 총 99,836명이 7, 8월에 있을 해외 여행상품을 예약했으며, 이는99,776명이 예약했던 2007년 6월의 기록을 능가하는 수치이다

이 회사의 조일상씨는 "우리는 이번 여름 방학 기간 동안 25만명 이상의 내국인들이 우리 여행사를 통해 해외로 여행을 나갈 것으로 예측하고 있습니다"라며 " 대부분의 여행객들은 중국, 일본 그리고 동남아시아로 여행을 떠나려 하며 유로화의 약세에 따라 유럽으로 떠나는 여행객들도 더 많아졌다"고 덧붙였다.