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| Fully vaccinated passengers queue up in the international departures area at Incheon International Airport, Sunday. Yonhap |
By Lee Hae-rin
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which entered its third year in January, has been akin to torture for travel-loving Koreans as they have been discouraged from traveling overseas. The interior ministry's announcement on Wednesday increasing the weekly number of international flights to the United States, Europe and other quarantine-free countries by 100 flights starting next month came as a relief by signaling a looming resumption of outbound tourism.
Tourists and those who are engaged in the local tourism sector, including travel agencies, are excited about the resumption of overseas tourism.
"The past more than two years of the pandemic has felt so long and frustrating as we were discouraged to travel overseas," Kim Yoon-ah, 29, a Pangyo-based educator, told The Korea Times, Wednesday. "Now that the quarantine restrictions have been lifted for travelers, I am ready to go anywhere possible."
Another person, Ki Soo-hee, a Seoul-based English teacher, also welcomed the news.
"I believe it's very important to refresh and release stress by traveling. Unfortunately that hasn't been an option, under the unusual and stressful circumstances due to the pandemic. So, of course, I am ready to travel," Ki said.
The government reopened borders for fully vaccinated travelers to enter without seven days of quarantine starting last Friday, stimulating excitement among prospective travelers and domestic travel agencies.
According to Incheon International Airport, Tuesday, there were 61,214 departures and arrivals combined during the first three days of this month. It is the first time the airport surpassed 20,000 daily visitors since the pandemic began in early 2020.
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| Employees at Incheon International Airport dispose of signage stickers concerning quarantine procedures for international arrivals, April 1. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Following new government measures to ease the quarantine regulations for fully vaccinated international travelers, the airport was also preparing to greet more passengers by removing quarantine-related signage ― including for designated bus stations ― along with fences, as international arrivals are now allowed to take public transportation.
Set up early on in the pandemic to control the number of COVID-19 infection cases entering Korea from abroad, the country's quarantine measures for international arrivals corresponded with a dramatic decline in inbound travelers, which hit the tourism sector hard. According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the number of inbound travelers decreased by 85.1 percent due to the pandemic, as the number fell from 28.71 million in 2019 to 4.27 million in 2020. In 2021, the figure dropped to 1.22 million.
Travel agencies are thrilled at the prospect of the market rebounding.
"We saw a 472-percent increase in package travel reservations and a steep rise of consumer inquiries about international travel since the government announcement regarding the lifting of the quarantine measures for vaccinated international arrivals," Lee Yoon-woo from a tourism agency Mode Tour said. .
Television home shopping programs have also witnessed travelers' enthusiasm about the forthcoming resumption of outbound tourism. According to Lotte Tour, the company's ten-day package tour to northern Europe, which costs over 6 million won ($4,924), received over 1,600 orders within 70 minutes of airing on the Hyundai Home Shopping channel. It led to 26 trillion won ($21 million) in sales, marking a record high in sales among both the agency's and channel's tour products.
Other domestic home shopping channels, including CJ ONSTYLE and Lotte Home Shopping, have seen over 2,500 orders by airing international travel tour packages for less than an hour at the end of last month.
Among the growing enthusiasm, the travel businesses have spotted a new consumer trend preferring small-scale resort getaways.
"Before the pandemic, travelers sought large group package tours with several destinations in many countries. Recently, we started offering small and private tours to meet the new consumer demands. They may be as small as a group of two," an official from Interpark Tour said.
"About 70 percent of the latest reservations are resort destinations, such as Saipan, Guam, Philippines and Hawaii. Lately, travelers seem to prioritize safety and quality over price and prefer to stay in high-quality accommodations," Lee from Mode Tour also explained.
"We're seeing high demand for European destinations as well. What changed for sure is that people seem to prefer spending more time in one country or destination, whereas previously, they wanted to visit three to four countries in ten days," he said.
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| Domestic airplanes are parked on the tarmac at Incheon International Airport, Tuesday. Yonhap |
The easing of the quarantine measures for vaccinated international travelers has given momentum to the tourism sector, but the market is still a long way from recovery at the moment. Although travelers' demand for international trips seems to have more than quadrupled, this demand amounts to a mere 10 percent of the sales from before the pandemic, Lee explained.
"However, we forecast that the restoration of a number of overseas flights and a steady decline in COVID-19 infections will enable a recovery of 30 to 40 percent by this year's peak summer vacation season, and hopefully of 50 percent by the fourth quarter," he said.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport announced Wednesday that it will restore one hundred international flights every month, starting in May. Currently, there are only 420 international flights per week, which is only 8.9 percent of the 4,714 there were in 2019 before the pandemic.
The ministry said it plans to restore the country's international airline networks fully within three years by comprehensively considering the quarantine measures and the aviation policies of other countries.
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