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Korea Tourism Organization heeds complaints of foreign travelers

Published: 30 Nov. 2023, 07:15 Updated: 30 Nov. 2023, 15:35

YIM SEUNG-HYE
[email protected]

Payment options and navigating websites and the country is getting easier, thanks to Korea Tourism Organization's efforts. [AHN DA-YOUNG]

Tiffany Luong from Vietnam visited Seoul just before Covid-19 and returned home with so many good memories of Korea that she decided to return to the country with her sister. During her 10-day trip to Korea in April this year, Luong wanted to experience other parts of the country and added Gyeongju, in North Gyeongsang, and Tongyeong, in South Gyeongsang, to her itinerary.

“As a foreigner, what we first do is type in ‘how to get to Gyeongju from Seoul,’” Luong said. “Some websites came up so I clicked on one of them. It seemed very convenient for me because it was all in English. But when I was just about to proceed to checkout, I checked the price and it was way more expensive than what my friends told me.”

Luong found out that it wasn’t the official ticketing site for Korea’s high-speed KTX train, but a service website that charges high commission fees.

“It was twice the price,” Luong said.

Though Luong said she enjoyed every part of Gyeongju and Tongyeong, she said the recent trip was not an easy one as navigating around Korea’s rural cities was a real challenge. Luong said she ended up getting help from “kind Koreans” and purchased KTX tickets to get to Gyeongju and express bus tickets to Tongyeong. Luong said she was surprised at how inconvenient it was for foreigners to make full use of Korea’s world-class transportation system.

“Because Korea is known for having an extensive network of public transportation, being one of the best in the world, travelers from abroad tend to have higher expectations,” Luong said. “But when they find out some shortcomings, like not being able to sign up for an app for Kakao taxis or an express bus or not being able to use foreign credit cards and so on, they get disappointed a lot more.”

In fact, a majority of complaints that come in through the Korea Tourism Organization’s Tourist Complaint Center are about foreign travelers' inconveniences while using Korea’s public transportation. As Korea is expecting to have had about 10 million visitors by the end of December this year, with 79 percent of them being individual travelers, the Korea Tourism Organization has been working to resolve the inconveniences.

After knocking on the doors of different corporations and companies, the Korea Tourism Organization said it was able to sign memoranda of understanding with eight companies in May, which promised to develop services that would help foreign travelers in Korea better navigate the country.

Korea's Kakao Taxi [JOONGANG ILBO]

One of the most fruitful outcomes, according to the Korea Tourism Organization, was with Kakao Mobility, which began integrating its taxi service app Kakao T with overseas apps so that foreign tourists could use the service in Korea with the taxi apps of their country. SR, the operator of another one of Korea’s high-speed trains, SRT, which departs from Suseo Station in southern Seoul, reopened its site recently to be available in at least four different languages — English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese — and now accepts foreign credit cards. Transportation card provider Tmoney and Korea Express Bus Association said they will work with Klook, an online travel booking platform, to make bookings and purchases for express buses available in different languages and to accept foreign credit cards and e-wallet payment methods like Apple Pay, PayPal and Alipay. Lotte Rental, a rental car company, also made its website available in different languages.

The Korea Tourism Organization said that such improvements have been made as the transport and mobility industry acknowledges that Korea needs to provide accessible transport services for foreign tourists.

“We will continue to listen to any shortcomings and look for areas for improvement so that short-term tourists can use Korea’s transportation services without language barriers or registration difficulties,” an official from the Korea Tourism Organization said.

Kakao T

Taxis are one of the most convenient methods of transportation in Korea, especially if you are carrying a lot of luggage or your destination is far away from any kind of public transportation stop. The fares are relatively inexpensive compared to European countries or Japan, for example. Kakao Mobility has been integrating its taxi service app Kakao T with foreign taxi apps that are used more frequently in other countries. By adopting the technology of the global mobility aggregator platform Splyt, foreign tourists will be able to use almost any taxi app from their home country to call one of the Kakao Taxis in Korea.

Fares will be automatically charged and paid through whatever payment method the user registered in their overseas taxi app. As of Oct. 5, Chinese tourists who use WeChat, Alipay and Ctrip can also call a van, known as Kakao T Venti, and use the luxury Black taxi service. After witnessing a high demand in larger and luxury vehicles by foreign tourists, Kakao Mobility said it plans to gradually expand this service to other countries starting in Southeast Asia, Japan and Europe next year.

SRT

Korea’s high-speed train KTX has been operating its website in English for a while. The only trick there is making sure to find the official Korail site, which provides tickets for the standard fare, without commission fees. Besides that, the process is pretty straightforward. But that wasn't the case for SRT, another high-speed train that departs from Suseo Station in southern Seoul. Recently, however, it launched a new website that is available in three different languages — Chinese, Japanese and English — and also accepts foreign credit cards like Visa, Master and JCB.

There’s also an SRT train fare and timetable that visitors can download from the site. The file currently uses a mix of English, Korean and Chinese, and the train operator, SR, said it will work on updating the file quickly so that everything will be in English at least. The app version of SRT also began operating a help chatbot called “Guppy,” which can answer inquiries in 13 different languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Italian and Russian.

LOTTE Rental

Lotte’s Rent-a-car service began hosting an English language website and decided to hold various promotions to attract foreign customers. Foreign customers who rent EV cars at one of Lotte Rent-a-car’s six branches, including Jeju Auto House, Seoul Station Branch and Incheon Airport Branch, will receive a charging card that allows them to charge their cars for free.

Foreign customers who rent a vehicle for more than three days or a luxury vehicle for more than 24 hours will also be able to receive two tickets to the Seoul Sky observation deck at Lotte World Tower in southern Seoul. Foreign customers can also get a special discount on the Airport Express, or Arex Express, which makes stops at Seoul Station and Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. All foreign customers will also have a GPS in their vehicle that will be available in English.

The promotion, which will be held indefinitely, only applies to customers who make reservations through Lotte Rent-a-car English website.

Tmoney

Upon landing at the Incheon International Airport, one of the first purchases made by many foreign tourists is a public transportation card known as Tmoney. However, since the vending machines that sell Tmoney cards only accept cash, both to buy and recharge the card, it is quite a hassle for cashless travelers.

Klook, an online travel booking platform, has two Tmoney card packages (with 5,000 won, or $3.80 of credit already on the card) that come with a SIM card for either five days or 10 days. Upon purchasing the Tmoney card and the SIM on Klook, visitors can pick them up from either Gimpo or Incheon International Airport after arrival. For Chinese travelers using Alipay, they can also purchase and charge their Alipay Tmoney on the Alipay app and get the physical card at Incheon airport.

Foreig tourists to Korea hold up their Korea Tour Card during their visit to Seoul's Myeongdong last summer [JOONGANG ILBO]

Tmoney also offers its Korea Tour Card for foreigners. This card gives discounts on purchases at shops that foreign travelers often visit ranging from Seoul’s N Seoul Tower to Jeju Shinhwa World’s duty-free shops. The card can be purchased prior to departure and picked up at the airport. For anyone with an Android mobile phone that has the NFC function, downloading the Korea Tour Card Tmoney app allow them to make purchases without the physical card.

Tmoney vending machines at Incheon International Airport [YIM SEUNG-HYE]

Klook

The Korea Express Bus Association and Tmoney are working with Klook to help foreign travelers purchase tickets for express buses more conveniently. At the moment on Klook, available bus routes that depart from Seoul go to Everland in Yongin, Gyeonggi; Yongpyong and Pyeongchang Alpensia ski resorts; Nami Island in Gyeonggi; and to the demilitarized zone.

Airport limousine bus tickets are also available on Klook. There are about five types of limousines, which connect Incheon International Airport to Gwanghwamun in central Seoul, the Dongdaemun area in eastern Seoul, Coex in southern Seoul, Dong Seoul Bus Terminal in eastern Seoul and Songpa District in southern Seoul.

Only one KTX rail pass is available on Klook at the moment, which allows users to take unlimited rides on KTX trains for three or five consecutive days, or buy any two or four days at a discounted price.

The Korea Express Bus Association and Tmoney said they will continue expand the available routes and services in the near future so that foreigners can easily purchase express bus tickets to other regions.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [[email protected]]