Tourism Minister urges to end strikes

In a press conference held yesterday, Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-won warned of a decreasing number of foreign tourists, asking the hotel unions to end strikes.

Minister Park said that the number of foreign tourists who came to Korea in June fell short by 23,000 of the estimated figure and expected the shortfall to rise to 30,000 in July.

Minister Park said that incoming Japanese tourists climbed by an average of 13.2 percent in the month of May, but following in the wake of strikes by Hotel Lotte, Hotel Lotte World, Seoul Hilton and Swiss Grand Hotel, the number of tourists is decreasing by some 20 percent.

In turn, the number of Koreans going overseas for travel for the period spanning from January to May has increased by 32.5 percent over the same period last year, with total spending by Korean tourists having increased 81.2 percent. Spending by individual Korean tourists abroad jumped by 20.5 percent to an average of US$922.