A growing number of overseas travelers are calling off their trips to South Korea over fear of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that hit the nation, dealing a blow to the tourism and hotel industry here, industry officials said Thursday.
The number of trip cancellations jumped from 2,500 on Monday to 7,000 on Tuesday, mostly by people from China and other Asian regions, and it is expected to grow in the wake of more cases of people infected with the contagious disease, the state-run Korea Tourism Organization said.
Although it is time for people to start booking hotels for July and August, tour agencies said they are receiving fewer reservations from Chinese. The booking rate for hotels has fallen 80 percent compared with the average for the peak summer season, according to industry sources.
Concerns over MERS are especially high among the Chinese after a South Korean man who tested positive for the virus flew to Hong Kong on May 26 and subsequently went to southern China, which was widely reported in local media. Hit hard by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002, Chinese are more cautious over the development of the contagious disease in South Korea.
“Travelers from China, which suffered from SARS, are more likely to shun South Korea as local media have given wide coverage to the MERS outbreak here,” said an official at a tour agency specialized in Chinese tour packages.
The rising cancellation rate is boding ill for the tourism and retail industry, which has been seeking to attract more Chinese travelers this year amid tepid domestic consumption.
The Chinese are South Korea’s biggest tourist group, with the number of travelers from the nation surpassing 6 million for the first time in 2014.
On Thursday, South Korea reported five additional cases of MERS, raising the number of people diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease to 35.
So far, two people have died after contracting the respiratory virus in the nation, the largest MERS outbreak outside of Saudi Arabia. (Yonhap)
