Due to the Impact of COVID-19, 'Walking Travelers' Slightly Decreased Last Year

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The number of travelers embarking on walking trips slightly decreased last year due to the impact of COVID-19.

The Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 11th that, according to the results of the '2020 Walking Travel Survey' conducted with 2,000 people nationwide aged 15 and older in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 33.2% of respondents took walking trips last year. This figure represents a 3.8 percentage point decrease compared to 37% the previous year.

Regarding reasons for not participating in walking trips (multiple responses allowed), 'lack of time' (43.5%) was the highest. Perceptions of risk such as 'seemed dangerous' (28.9%) and 'because of COVID-19' (27.1%) also played a significant role.

These risk factors were found to have a greater impact on women and the elderly. Looking at walking travel experience rates by gender and age, the decrease was larger among women (5.3 percentage points) than men (2.2 percentage points). In particular, those aged 40 and above saw a decrease of 8.1 percentage points. The experience rate for those aged 70 and over dropped to 5.8%, down 18.1 percentage points from 2019. Conversely, among those aged 30 and under, the rate increased by 3.0 percentage points compared to 2019.

The main reasons for participating in walking trips were identified as 'communion with nature' (64.1%), 'improving physical health' (63.4%), and 'stress relief' (56.2%), in that order.

Among the 585 walking trails introduced on the walking travel website ‘Durunubi’, the most visited place over the past year was Jeju Olle Trail, with a visitation rate of 24.9%. Jeju Olle has had the highest visitation rate for three consecutive years since the 2018 survey. Other popular trails included Busan Galmaetgil (8.8%), Hallasan Dullegil (8.1%), Nampalanggil (7.2%), and Haepalanggil (6.5%).

Meanwhile, the walking travel survey has been conducted annually since 2018 to analyze the trends and usage patterns of walking travel among the public. The survey period was from December 11 to 24 last year, with a sampling error of 95% and a confidence level of ±2.19%. The survey was conducted by CoreMind.

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