Over 5,000 Chinese Group Tourists Arrive... Highest Since 'THAAD'

Incentive Tour for Employees of 'IYungTang' in China

Chinese incentive tourists
Photo by Korea Tourism Organization

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] For the first time since 2017, when the impact of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system began to take effect, more than 5,000 Chinese group tourists are visiting South Korea.

The Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 7th, "More than 5,000 executives and employees of 'Yiyongtang (溢涌堂)', a health food and auxiliary equipment manufacturer from Shenyang, China, will visit Korea for an incentive tour lasting 5 nights and 6 days until the 12th," adding, "This is the largest single event since 2017." Incentive tourism is a reward trip funded wholly or partially by companies to motivate and reward employees for their performance, and it is effective in attracting large-scale tourists.

After obtaining Yiyongtang's incentive tour plan in September last year, the Korea Tourism Organization collaborated with Incheon Metropolitan City and the Incheon Tourism Organization to conduct a preliminary inspection with Yiyongtang's staff. Subsequently, they continuously persuaded the executives and succeeded in attracting the group to Incheon. Yiyongtang's executives and employees will hold a corporate event at Songdo Convensia on the 9th. They will then visit tourist sites such as Gyeongbokgung Palace, Lotte World, the Folk Museum, and Incheon's Wolmido.

Due to the deterioration of Korea-China relations caused by the THAAD issue, visits by Chinese group tourists had stopped, but the incentive tourism is gradually helping to recover the trend. Last month, more than 3,300 executives and employees from Shanghai W Cosmetics, a famous Chinese cosmetics manufacturer and seller, also visited South Korea for an incentive tour. As of the end of November last year, the number of Chinese incentive tourists recorded 99,857, an increase of about 200% compared to the same period the previous year. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea also increased by 26% to about 6 million last year compared to the previous year.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization have set a goal to attract 20 million foreign tourists this year, including 7.5 million Chinese tourists. Jung Ik-soo, head of the Meeting Incentive Team at the Korea Tourism Organization, said, "To achieve 20 million foreign tourists, we plan to strengthen efforts to attract high-value incentive tourists targeting promising markets such as China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.