Gov't to impose restrictions on travel agencies to stop tour group shopping scams

Tourists look at umbrellas at a shop in Seoul on June 28. [NEWS1]

A new set of regulations banning travel agencies from forcing tourist groups to shop at certain spots in return for payment will go into effect on Monday.

Referred to as "dumping tourism" in Korean, local travel agencies have been penalized by the government for attracting large group tours, particularly from China, with cheaper travel prices, and then making up for the loss by forcing the tourists to go shopping at certain places in return for commission.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism revised its guidelines so that the government operates regular inspections on travel agencies and their business models to prevent dumping practices and to penalize agencies that are caught doing so.

A local travel agency was ordered to shut down for a month last April after being reported by a Chinese tourist last February for forcing them to go shopping during their tour in Korea. The report was made to the Tourist Complaint Center and investigated by the government afterward.

The new regulation will punish agencies for not charging appropriate fees to foreign travel operators, forcing tourists to go shopping and not paying fair wages to translators or guides.

The Culture Ministry will hold a meeting with travel agencies on July 12 to explain the new guidelines in detail. It will also review the papers on 215 agencies specializing in group tours in July and receive new applications for licenses in August. Companies that propose innovative ideas with their programs will be given extra credits, the government said.

More than 2 million Chinese travelers came to Korea this year as of June, which is one-third of all inbound tourists and already more than the total number of Chinese tourists in 2023, according to the Culture Ministry.

One-tenth of Chinese travelers came to Korea on group tour visas, according to the Culture Ministry. Around 12 percent of Chinese travelers came in large groups in 2019, before the pandemic.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]