Busan City Resumes Group Tours from China ... Establishes 'Tourist Reception Response Strategy'

Improvement of 'Jeju Visa-Free Entry Permit for Transit Passengers' Centered on the Seoul Metropolitan Area

Expansion of Onboard Business Trip Screening and Exclusive Restaurants for Cruise Group Tourists

Busan City has established and announced a response strategy to accommodate Chinese group tourists during the peak season of Chinese group tourism, the National Day holiday (9.29?10.6).

Busan City Hall.

This is a preemptive response measure by Busan City to the expected surge in Chinese group tourists during the Chinese National Day holiday, following China’s full reopening of group travel to Korea after 6 years and 5 months.

To prepare this response strategy, the city held a ‘Joint Inspection Meeting on Urban Tourism Readiness Following the Resumption of Chinese Group Tourism’ at City Hall on the 19th, where related organizations discussed plans to organize the urban tourism reception system in response to the resumption of Chinese group tourism and derived key tasks to be promoted.

Attendees at the meeting included representatives from the Busan Immigration Office, Busan Port Authority, Busan Tourism Organization, Korea Airports Corporation, Busan Tourism Association, Air Busan, travel agencies dedicated to attracting Chinese group tourists, and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line officials.

During the meeting, various opinions were shared on topics such as ▲measures to revitalize cruise tourism ▲improving entry and exit convenience for group tourists ▲providing shopping convenience for group tourists ▲eradication of low-quality and low-price group tour products and support for developing high value-added products ▲development of Chinese-preferred content linked to local resources.

The prepared response strategy includes a vision of ‘Enhancing the foundation for attracting group tourists to upgrade Busan’s tourism industry’ and contains nine key tasks across three major areas. The city plans to fully implement this strategy to leverage the resumption of Chinese group tourism as an opportunity for the leap forward of Busan’s tourism industry.

The three major areas are ▲enhancing convenience for tourists’ entry and exit ▲creating a convenient and comfortable travel environment ▲promoting the development of customized tourism content for group tourists.

First, to enhance the convenience of entry and exit for group tourists, the city will propose to the Ministry of Justice improvements to the visa-free entry permit system and expansion of on-board immigration inspections for cruise ships arriving at Busan Port, targeting group transfer passengers from Jeju centered in the metropolitan area.

The core of the group tourist attraction system is visa exemption. Reflecting industry opinions that Chinese group tourists, who have a high proportion of shopping, tend to purchase souvenirs and other products just before departure, making the departure airport important, the city will propose revising the ‘Visa-Free Entry Permit Guidelines’ to the Ministry of Justice so that Chinese group tourists can freely choose their departure airport regardless of the entry airport, expanding the current ‘Jeju group transfer passenger visa-free entry permit system’ which operates mainly at Incheon and Gimpo airports.

Additionally, recognizing the issue that cruise tourists spend more than 4 hours of their approximately 8-hour stay in Busan on face-to-face immigration procedures, the city plans to propose expanding the ‘on-board immigration inspection for cruises arriving at Busan’ to improve entry convenience for group tourists.

To create a comfortable travel environment for group tourists, the city will promote ▲enhancement of shopping convenience ▲reorganization of the tourism guidance system ▲expansion of designated restaurants for cruise group tourists.

The city plans to significantly increase Zero Pay affiliated stores that can be used in connection with popular Chinese mobile payment methods such as WeChat Pay and Alipay, and promote the usage locations and methods of Zero Pay.

The tourism guidance system, including foreign language notations at tourist information centers and signage, will be thoroughly inspected, and hygiene levels at major accommodations and restaurants catering to group tourists will be intensively managed.

The number of restaurants exclusively for cruise group tourists, currently five, will also be significantly expanded to ten.

Furthermore, in line with the changed demand for Chinese group tourism, the city will support the development of Busan-style premium tourism products such as business tourism (MICE), casinos, K-culture, and medical tourism.

The city plans to completely upgrade the image of Busan tourism for Chinese tourists by developing tourism products that capture the charm of K-culture and attracting large-scale business tourism (MICE), thereby eliminating the sale of low-quality and low-price products previously targeted at Chinese groups.

Additionally, the city will collaborate with local travel agencies to compose premium group tourism products by linking various regional tourism contents such as the Busan Fireworks Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Cirque du Soleil, Arte Museum, and Circle Chart Music Awards.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “With the resumption of Chinese group travel to Korea, the public and private sectors will join forces to make every effort to attract Chinese tourists from the Greater China region, who accounted for the largest share of Busan tourism before COVID-19.”

In 2016, before the deployment of THAAD, 980,000 Chinese tourists visited Busan, marking the peak of Chinese tourism. However, due to the THAAD incident in 2017 and COVID-19 in 2020, the number of Chinese tourists sharply declined, dropping to 27,779 in 2022.

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