Ministry of SMEs and Startups Promotes Prepayment Campaign in Aviation and Tourism Industries

Advance Payment of Airfare to Alleviate Management Difficulties in the Aviation Industry

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Park Young-sun, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) announced on the 16th that it will expand the 'Good Prepayment National Campaign,' which was conducted for small business owners and self-employed individuals, to the struggling aviation and tourism industries.

The Good Prepayment Campaign is a voluntary consumer movement initiated by the Ministry since April 27, in collaboration with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Korea Employers Federation, the Korea Federation of SMEs, and the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise Associations, to help small business owners and self-employed individuals suffering from the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The Ministry plans to prepay airfare for overseas business trips in the second half of the year by the end of June to provide some support to the aviation industry, which is facing management difficulties due to mass reservation cancellations caused by expanded entry restrictions between countries. Prepayment will be conducted by prepaying 80% of the airfare portion of this year's overseas travel expenses to airlines by each institution, and later deducting the actual airfare from the prepaid amount upon ticket issuance. Airlines will execute ticket purchases upon institutional requests for tickets valid until the end of December this year, and any remaining balance at the time of settlement will be refunded to the institutions. In particular, the Ministry plans to use low-cost carriers (LCCs) for overseas business trips to Southeast Asia to prevent concentration on major airlines.

To normalize the management of the tourism industry, the Ministry plans to pre-purchase 20 million KRW worth of 'COVID-19 Overcome National Tourism Gift Certificates' and use them as rewards regularly given to outstanding employees every year. These gift certificates can only be used in the tourism industry, including travel agencies, hotels, and theme parks. Additionally, the Ministry will allocate customized welfare expenses for current employees in the first half of the year and spend the entire amount, excluding some budget for childbirth congratulatory money and other expenses in the second half, to contribute to economic revitalization.

A Ministry official stated, "We hope that this prepayment campaign will provide some help to the aviation and tourism industries struggling due to COVID-19."

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