BTS concert in Busan is giving hotels permission to gouge

Social Affairs

Published: 29 Aug. 2022, 18:48 Updated: 29 Aug. 2022, 19:18

BTS concert in Busan is giving hotels permission to gouge

A promotional poster for the free Busan concert by BTS on Oct. 15 to promote the city's bid to host the 2030 World Expo. [YONHAP]

A free concert by K-pop superstars BTS in Busan is causing chaos in the local hotel industry ahead of a massive influx of fans.

The concert on Oct. 15, called “BTS: Yet to Come in Busan,” will be held on a makeshift seaside stage in Gijang county, northeastern Busan, and is expected to draw 100,000 fans. That would make it the biggest single BTS show ever in Korea, the boy band said.

It is part of the city's bid to host the 2030 World Expo.

While the concert itself is free, accommodation is going to be anything but as local hotels try to cash in.

According to posts uploaded to multiple BTS fan forums, room rates have been steeply hiked, with one hotel in the Gijang area raising their price for a two-night stay for the weekend of Oct. 14-16 to 7.5 million won ($5,560) — almost 33 times the 300,000 won rate for two nights at the same hotel in September.

BTS fans are complaining of cancelled reservations with a motive that isn't hard to figure out.

“My hotel in the Gijang area cancelled my reservation and are now charging five times as much,” wrote one online commentator. "How can they demand 3.5 million won for a single night?”

Apparently some hotels are hoping for deep-pocketed foreign fans to be coming to Busan.

“My hotel said they cancelled my booking because I’m Korean,” another netizen complained,

Such blatant price-gouging might have the opposite effect desired by Busan, which was to use the free BTS concert to promote the city’s World Expo bid.

“I hope Busan isn’t selected as the host city,” read one comment in an online forum, while another read simply, “Busan is running its reputation into the ground.”

This is not the first time Busan hotels have been criticized for hiking room rates during a major event. Affordable rooms are difficult to find every year during the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which this year runs from Oct. 5 to 14.

As an example, a two-night stay at a budget hotel on the popular Haeundae beach on the weekend of Sept. 23-25 cost 260,000 won, while a two-night stay at the same hotel on the weekend of Oct. 7-9 — the only weekend within the BIFF time frame — costs 1.15 million won, according to Trip.com

While the limited accommodations in underdeveloped Gijang county, located approximately 17 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Haeundae beach, were bound to sell out, hotel rates across Busan for the same weekend have risen steeply.

According to the local Busan Ilbo newspaper, a motel in Jung-dong, Haeundae District is charging 1 million won for a room on the concert weekend that normally costs 170,000 won, while motel rooms near Busan Station, located approximately 30 kilometers away from the concert venue, are charging 500,000 won for a single night’s stay.

The Busan city government says it will crack down on price-gouging by dispatching inspection teams to hotels. It also promises to cooperate with neighboring Ulsan to expand accommodation options.

“Some lodging facilities are cancelling existing reservations and relisting them, thereby undermining the mission of the [BTS] concert and tarnishing the city’s image,” a city official told the Busan Ilbo.

“We will seek various ways to solve the lack of accommodation, such as heightening inspections and cooperating with Ulsan.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]