Domestic Tourism, Retail Rebound
30 June, 2020
Near 100,000 persons visited Jeju Island last weekend just before peak summer holiday season. According to the Jeju Tourism Association, 99,161 people visited the southern holiday resort island over the weekend, and 99.7 percent of these were Koreans.
As far as Korean visitors go, quantities have consequently returned to 98.7 percent of the most common for this season, whereas in March and April they plummeted to only 53 percent of the most common numbers.
Private consumption ground to a digital standstill in April as a result of coronavirus epidemic, but consumer sentiment began to improve gradually in-may and is sometimes showing signals of rebounding sharply. Only overseas travel is largely still impossible.
Luxury hotels about Jeju including Lotte and Shilla are fully booked every weekend, while car rental firms have observed reservation rates go back to peak-season amounts after plummeting by greater than a third.
A staffer at one car local rental firm said, "We are booked total three weeks forward." One airline staffer explained, "It's extremely difficult to discover empty seats on flights to Jeju at the weekends."
Online shopping mall Gmarket analyzed travel revenue trends in the first six months of the year and discovered that overseas travel declined 75 percent on-year but domestic hotel and different accommodation bookings rose 27 percent.
The effect is a marked improvement in Korea's notorious tourism deficit. While the quantity of inbound tourists provides declined sharply, Koreans are going nowhere else.
According to the Lender of Korea, Korea's tourism deficit fell 20.9 percent on-year in April to US$344.5 million. Credit card usage overseas during the first quarter of this year also plunged 23 percent to $3.6 billion but in Korea is rose 2.5 percent to W205.8 trillion (US$1=W1,201).
As the lockdown eases, sales at department stores and other offline retailers are up aswell. Lotte Department Store's revenue rise four percent on-year from June 1 to 28, while product sales at its discount retail outlets heightened 14 percent after plunging 12 percent and four percent in April and May.
Over the same period Hyundai Department Store as well posted a 6.6 percent sales upsurge in its branches and 21.4 percent in price cut outlets.
A department shop staffer said, "Buyers who are unable to buy goods overseas seem to be spending money in Korea."
As ever, luxury items are leading the craze. Shinsegae and Lotte duty-free retailers' websites were swamped just lately when the two chains dumped their leftover luxury inventory at enormous discounts.
Clubs are booked to levels not seen in 15 years. Who owns one course in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, said, "It's become almost impossible to e book during peak time on weekends, and it's tough to locate open slots possibly on weekdays now."
According to travel firm Very Good Tour, household golf package sales improved fourfold this month in comparison to a year ago.
Source: