Tourists visit the Gamcheon Culture Village in Busan, South Korea, March 7, 2023. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

The resumption of Chinese group tours will boost South Korea’s economy, experts say, adding that tourism and cultural exchanges can also help improve bilateral relations. 

China recently announced a third round of resumed outbound group tour services to 78 countries and regions, including South Korea. The first Chinese cruise ship since 2017 is scheduled to arrive at South Korea’s resort island of Jeju on the afternoon of Aug 31, according to the Jeju Tourism Organization.

Chinese travel agency Tongcheng Travel said the number of international air tickets booked for the period increased by more than 35 percent over the same period the previous month

Suh Yong-gu, professor of marketing at the Sookmyung Business School at the Sookmyung Women’s University in South Korea, said China resuming group tours would be “positive” for South Korea’s domestic economy.

READ MORE: Resilience needed to overcome challenges facing tourism in S. Korea

Suh told China Daily that she estimates that 1 million Chinese tourists per year can contribute 0.004 percent to South Korea’s domestic consumption market if each tourist spends $800 per visit. 

Reservations are fully booked until March following a surge in demand for cruises from China to Jeju.

The return of Chinese group travelers can raise South Korea’s GDP by 0.06 percent this year, according to the Bank of Korea, which expects to see 800,000 more travelers from China to visit South Korea before the end of this year.

South Korea’s central bank said it projects that some 2.2 million Chinese tourists will visit the country between July and December this year. In the fourth quarter, the number is expected to reach 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels. 

In the first half of 2023, about 564,000 Chinese tourists visited South Korea. This was equivalent to just 19.5 percent of the 2.8 million recorded in the first half of 2019, according to the Korea Tourism Organization. 

“The resumption of Chinese group tours to South Korea is no doubt very good news,” said An Yong-ju, professor of global leisure and tourism at South Korea’s Sun Moon University, noting that tourism is more than the mobility of people because all the activities related to it will have a strong impact on the economy.

To sustain the momentum, An said the South Korean government needs to put in more effort since it has the biggest role to play in attracting more Chinese tourists to the country. 

China was the first country to reach 6 million tourist visits to South Korea and Chinese travelers accounted for nearly half of the total foreign tourists in 2014 but arrivals have dropped significantly.

An told China Daily that COVID-19 and diplomatic tensions after the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea in 2017 explained the drop.

Noting South Korea saw a record high of 17.5 million international arrivals in 2019, An said the number could have easily surpassed 20 million if the government formed better relations with China before THAAD. 

Besides Jeju, local governments such as Incheon, Busan and Mokpo are ramping up efforts to attract Chinese tourists by introducing targeted products and services, arranging overseas promotional events, as well as cooperating with major Chinese travel agencies. 

Duty free chains like Shinsegae, which welcomed the first Chinese tour group of 31 people on Aug 26, are working to improve Chinese-language services and offering promotion campaigns with China’s digital payment platform WeChat Pay. 

“We expect to see more Chinese group tourists from October when there is (China’s) National Day holiday,” said Park Sang-sun from the overseas sales department of Shinsegae Duty Free.

Park added that the company will cooperate with travel agencies in Beijing and Shanghai while building a tourism cluster in the South Korean capital’s Myeongdong shopping district to help revive the tourism industry.

In China, the 8-day holiday from Sept 29 to Oct 6 is expected to see a rise in popularity of outbound tourism.

READ MORE: YouTubers prove the key to Korean tourism

Chinese travel agency Tongcheng Travel said the number of international air tickets booked for the period increased by more than 35 percent over the same period the previous month. 

Suh from Sookmyung Women’s University said rebuilding infrastructure for Chinese group tourists, such as language services and Chinese signage, is urgently needed.

The China-South Korean relations “can be improved by an open-door policy in the area of tourism and cultural exchanges,” said Suh, noting that tourism and cultural exchanges should not be disrupted due to political reasons, despite the recent deterioration in bilateral relations.

Contact the writer at kelly@chinadailyapac.com