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Coronavirus China
ChinaDiplomacy

Chinese tourists and South Korea want to reunite but pandemic fears and rules stand in the way

  • Ctrip reports searches for flights to South Korea soared 158 per cent when China announced it would drop quarantine restrictions
  • Airlines and tour companies are not rushing to welcome visitors from mainland China while Covid-19 case numbers rise

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Myeongdong shopping area in Seoul, South Korea, was once a hot destination for tourists from China. Korean travel businesses cautiously await the return of mainland travellers. Photo: Xinhua
Jack Lauin SeoulandSeong Hyeon Choiin Hong Kong
Chinese tourists eager to visit the popular holiday destination of South Korea jammed travel websites as Beijing announced the imminent lifting of inbound quarantine rules.
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Bookings soared last month as people welcomed the major easing of a zero-Covid policy that had lasted nearly three years. However, the South Korean government’s decision to limit additional flights and test Chinese arrivals for the coronavirus has dampened the mood among Korean tourism businesses, which want to wait and see if pre-pandemic numbers from China return.
Before the pandemic, and Beijing’s diplomatic row with Seoul in 2017 over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system, more than half the visitors to South Korea would be from China.

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South Korea to require Covid-19 tests for travellers from China, joining US and Japan

South Korea to require Covid-19 tests for travellers from China, joining US and Japan

Beijing unofficially banned group and individual tours to South Korea during the 2017 row, saying the US system’s radar would peer into its territory and threaten its security.

Despite a recovery in tourist numbers before the pandemic, Chinese visitors never again returned in droves like they would before the THAAD dispute.

Mainland Chinese visitors used to flock to the packed Myeongdong shopping district in Seoul to buy cosmetics, try out street food and shop for clothes. But few could be seen over the recent Christmas and New Year season. Instead, most of the holiday travellers hailed from places that would not quarantine or test them when they returned home, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

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A Seoul Tourism Association guide standing in his bright red down jacket uniform to direct visitors in Myeongdong said only a few mainland Chinese visitors had approached him or his colleagues for information, even as tourists poured in from elsewhere.

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