GGRAsia – S.Korea aims 2mln China tourists in 2023 amid policy tweaks

S.Korea aims 2mln China tourists in 2023 amid policy tweaks

Sep 04, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

South Korea is one of the latest Asia-Pacific nations to announce tweaks to tourism policy to try to tempt back visitors from mainland China during the post-pandemic recovery period.

Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday that South Korea would “lift”, until the end of this year, processing fees “currently set at KRW18,000 [about US$13.60] for visitors arriving in groups, until the end of December”.

In early August the mainland China authorities had announced – as part of a post-Covid-19 easing of arrangements – that they would allow group travel by the country’s citizens to more destinations, including Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United States.

Monday’s Yonhap report cited South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance as saying the authorities there would expedite approval of extra flights to serve the mainland China market.

Jeju island, a semi-autonomous South Korean holiday island that is host to a number of foreigner-only casinos, allows visa-free entry for a variety of passport holders – including mainland China passport holders – if they fly in directly, i.e., without routing first via the Korean peninsula.

According to Yonhap, from 2017 to 2019, the years immediately preceding the Covid-19 pandemic, the annual average number of Chinese tourists visiting South Korea as a whole came to 4.99 million.

From January to June inclusive this year, the tally was 540,000.

Yonhap said the South Korean government plans to attract approximately 1.5 million additional Chinese tourists in the second half this year, with a goal of reaching circa 2 million for full-year 2023.

The figure is expected to contribute to a 0.16 percentage-point growth in South Korea’s gross domestic product, said Yonhap.

According to the report, South Korea has opened in China two “visa centres”, taking to seven the total of such facilities in that nation.

South Korea has 17 casinos, according to Korea Casino Association data, with 16 of those open only to foreigners. In pre-pandemic times, China and Japan have been important customer source markets for tourists, including for some of those foreigner-only venues, according to statements by operating companies.

In July, data confirmed to GGRAsia by several operators of foreigner-only casinos indicated that the rate at which gambling volume by Japanese and Chinese tourists had been recovering at their properties did not necessarily positively correlate with the recovery rate for air travel between those places and South Korea.