Upcoming Chinese National Day holiday not a straw for sluggish South Korean tourism
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E-mail People's Daily, September 18, 2017
The upcoming week-long National Day holiday in China will not be the straw for South Korean tourism to clutch at, said South Korean media.
According to Yonhap News Agency, group tours from China almost stopped since March, leading to a drastic downturn in the South Korean tourism industry.
Consumption by Chinese tourists in South Korea during the upcoming “Golden Week” will likely experience a 30% drop, the news agency estimated.
South Korea will embrace a 10-day holiday starting from early October. Though domestic tourists will contribute to the country’s overall consumption, it’s still far from the level of consumption by Chinese tourists.
Citing China Daily, Yonhap said that some six million Chinese tourists will travel abroad for the upcoming holiday, but South Korea is no longer a favorite destination.
With the impact of the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, only 7.76 million Chinese people visited South Korea in the first seven months of 2017, a 20.9% drop compared with the same period of the last year.
People in the tourism industry in South Korea predict escalated tension between the two countries upon the completion of the temporary deployment of the system. The number of Chinese tourists will keep dropping during the upcoming holiday, they said.
“We have suffered great loss because of the decreased number of Chinese tourists, and the deployment of the additional four launchers will worsen the situation,” said an insider. “The golden week was a money time for us last year, but now I have no expectation,” he added.
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