"Half say to reduce..."... Only 30% of Accommodation Reservations Canceled, Both Industry and Customers 'Perplexed'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Yoon Kyung-soo (45), who lives in Dobong-gu, Seoul, was scheduled to stay with his family for one night and two days at a resort in Gangwon-do on the 31st. However, he received a text message from the accommodation provider asking if he was willing to cancel the reservation and reschedule for after January next year, leaving him uncertain about what to do. Yoon said, "I judged it to be relatively safe and had really struggled to find a room last month with the intention of staying only at the accommodation," adding, "After receiving confirmation messages several times, I am hesitating whether to cancel."

The government decided to implement special strengthened quarantine measures for the year-end and New Year period from midnight on the 24th until January 3 next year to reverse the spread of the third wave of the domestic COVID-19 outbreak. As part of the detailed implementation plan, it requires nationwide accommodation facilities to limit their reservation rates to within 50%, causing confusion among related industries and users.

From the accommodation facilities' perspective, it is difficult to decide which guests to restrict from checking in when they are suddenly instructed to reduce fully booked reservations from several weeks ago to less than half. Meanwhile, the reserving customers are reluctant to give up the accommodations they have secured with difficulty.

An official from a large resort said, "We have repeatedly requested reservation holders to change their schedules via text messages, but in popular areas, the cancellation rate is only around 20 to 30%," adding, "We are encouraging cancellations starting with corporate members and group users, but it is not easy to lower the reservation rate further."

Another official from a large hotel said, "In the case of local hotels near the seaside, the year-end and New Year reservation rates still reach 60 to 70%," and added, "To request cancellations, we have mobilized staff from other departments to contact lower-priority reservation holders first, but many do not answer the calls."

He continued, "This year, since both Christmas and the year-end/New Year holidays fall on weekends, it is much more difficult to ask customers who booked during this period to change or cancel their schedules," and expressed regret, saying, "While we fully agree with the priority of quarantine, the government suddenly notified us to limit usage to less than half of the capacity, so there was no time to respond on-site."

According to the government's special strengthened quarantine measures for the year-end and New Year announced on the 22nd, the accommodation facilities required to limit reservation rates to within 50% during this period include 2,218 hotels nationwide under the Tourism Promotion Act, 30,381 lodging businesses under the Public Hygiene Act, 28,567 rural guesthouses, and 2,049 foreigner urban guesthouses.

The government plans to exempt penalties for cancellations when reservations are impossible due to the 50% room limit, based on the consumer dispute resolution standards revised on the 13th of last month, and to strengthen public promotion so that this can be practically utilized on-site. An industry official said, "Due to the very short preparation period, there will likely be many cases where users exceeding the limited number visit the site as scheduled," expressing concern, "We worry about conflicts arising from turning customers away at the counter."

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