Tourist complaints in Korea hit report excessive amid journey growth

Tourist complaints in Korea have hit a report excessive this 12 months, information confirmed Sunday, with issues starting from reckless taxi driving to overcharging at procuring malls.

A complete of 1,753 complaints had been filed nationwide between January and July this 12 months, already surpassing the 1,744 circumstances reported final 12 months, in accordance with the info compiled by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO).

The rising variety of complaints has raised requires Korea to give you measures to enhance tourism companies, significantly as international guests have complained of extreme lodging cancellation charges and different points throughout main occasions, corresponding to Ok-pop supergroup BTS’ live shows.

According to the info, the overall variety of complaints from international guests fell through the COVID-19 pandemic however has risen steadily since 2023 and reached 1,744 final 12 months, with the determine for this 12 months already surpassing the annual whole of 2025 in simply seven months.

By area, Seoul recorded probably the most complaints at 665, adopted by the southeastern metropolis of Busan with 594, Incheon with 176 and the southern resort island of Jeju with 155.

Busan, which attracted some 110,000 guests for BTS’ world tour live shows in June, noticed complaints greater than double from 239 circumstances reported for all of final 12 months.

Tourists complained most often about lodging, with 500 circumstances involving one-sided reservation cancellations and extreme cancellation charges.

Unfriendly service and overcharging at shops got here subsequent with 376 circumstances, adopted by poor airport and airline companies with 186 circumstances and one other 182 circumstances complaining of taxi drivers refusing to make use of meters or driving recklessly.

Foreign guests accounted for 84.3 p.c of all complaints, with Chinese nationals submitting the most important variety of complaints at 680, adopted by Japanese at 263 and Taiwanese at 182.

Experts have known as for efforts from each the federal government and the non-public sector to enhance vacationer satisfaction to maintain the tourism growth going, as this 12 months marked the primary time the nation’s international customer rely surpassed 10 million earlier than the tip of the primary half.

“As the number of tourists has grown and the tourism industry has expanded, complaints and other negative indicators have also increased,” Yoon Ji-hwan, a tourism professor at Kyung Hee University, mentioned.

Yoon additionally warned that unfavourable experiences shared on social media may rapidly unfold and harm the tourism trade.