Passenger cruise service to Tsushima to restart

A Pan Star cruise docks in Busan on Dec.1 after its trip to Osaka, Japan. The cruise operator will be operating a passenger ship to Tsushima Island starting Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

Passenger cruise service between Korea's largest port Busan and Japan's Tsushima Island will soon restart for the first time since both countries tightened their borders in the wake of Covid-19 three years ago.

Cruise operator Pan Star announced Monday that service between Busan and Japan’s Tsushima Island will resume from Feb. 25.

“Staring Feb. 25 the high-speed passenger cruise ship Panstar Tsushima Lin between Busan and Tsushima’s Hitakatsu will resume on a trial basis,” the company said in a statement.

“Due to the Tsushima’s authority measures regarding local medical service conditions, we will limit the number of trips as well as passengers.”

The company will operate one round trip a day on Saturday and Sunday for the time being.

On Monday, it will operate a single one-way trip from Tsushima to Busan to take Korean passengers who visited on the weekend home.

The maximum number of passengers that will be allowed to board the ship will be limited to 100.

The ship has the capacity to carry up to 425 passengers.

“We will continue to work with the Japanese authorities so that we can operate even on weekdays without limits to the number of people who can board the ship, as it was before Covid-19,” said an employee of the company.

Trial cruise service between Busan and Tsushima has been suspended since April 2020, when the number of people infected with Covid-19 started to rise in Korea due to a large-scale outbreak involving a religious cult.

Cruise ship service between Busan and Japan has been restarting since December, starting with the cities of Fukuoka, Osaka and Shimonoseki.

The two countries agreed late October to work on reopening cruise ship service between the two countries.

Tsushima is one of the most popular destinations for Korean tourists, especially ones living in Busan as the trip takes less than two hours by ship.

Some 260,000 Koreans traveled to Tsushima in 2019.

However, this was a drop compared to 410,000 in 2018, largely the result of a boycott of Japan by Korean consumers in response to Japanese export curbs targeting South Korea's semiconductor industry and historical issues.

With both countries relaxing Covid-19 restrictions this year, tourists traveling between the two countries have increased significantly.

According to Korea's immigration authorities, Japanese accounted for the largest number of foreign arrivals in December.

Over 85,000 Japanese traveled to Korea that month, accounting for 15.4 percent. Americans came in second with 68,000 and Singaporeans third with 50,000.

Japan was also Korean travelers' favorite destination.

Of the nearly 1.4 million Koreans who went abroad in December, 33 percent or 464,000 visited Japan, far eclipsing American (109.00) and Chinese (33,000) visitors.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]