Displaying Theme Park Ticket Prices Based on Children... Dark Patterns Rampant

Korea Consumer Agency Investigates 6 Major Travel Platforms
3 Including MyRealTrip Found Violations and Recommended Improvements

It has been revealed that 'dark patterns' deceiving consumers are rampant in overseas theme park tickets sold on travel platforms.

The Korea Consumer Agency announced on the 12th that, after monitoring the use of dark patterns in 44 overseas theme park ticket products sold on six major travel platforms last September, dark pattern cases were found in 16 products across three platforms. The platforms surveyed were ▲MyRealTrip ▲Interpark Tour ▲Klook ▲Triple ▲Trip.com ▲Hana Tour, and dark pattern cases were found on MyRealTrip, Interpark Tour, and Triple in this investigation.

These cases displayed the representative ticket price on the product search screen as the child price, which is cheaper than the adult price, or showed the price of meal coupons within the theme park instead of the ticket price. The Consumer Agency pointed out, "Consumers may mistakenly believe that the ticket price is cheaper," and added, "It also becomes difficult to compare prices between products, so the method of displaying prices needs to be improved."

There were also differences in whether cancellation was possible after purchase. Among the 44 overseas theme park products sold on the surveyed travel platforms, 17 products allowed cancellations at minimum. On the other hand, among seven official overseas theme park websites, six except Paris Disneyland sold tickets under non-cancellable conditions.

Prices on travel platforms were mostly cheaper than on the official overseas theme park websites. Among the 44 products on travel platforms, 35 were cheaper than the official websites by at least 1 KRW and up to 27,158 KRW. Seven products were more expensive by at least 900 KRW and up to 13,870 KRW.

Based on the results of this investigation, the Korea Consumer Agency recommended that the relevant travel platforms improve their price display methods to avoid using dark patterns. The agency urged, "When purchasing theme park tickets, consumers should carefully compare prices and transaction conditions between platforms and official websites before buying."

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