제 16 호 Revival of Tourism: Welcome Back!
After Two Years of Long Vacation, Tourists Are Back in Their Businesses
Kicker : LIFE
Revival of Tourism: Welcome Back!
After Two Years of Long Vacation, Tourists Are Back in Their Businesses
Do-Hyuk Kim, Reporter
To be honest, I have never seen a single disease that has made these immense impacts on the world since I was born twenty-four years ago. The rapid spread of COVID-19 threatened our daily lives by directly harming our health, and threatened much further by influencing to several businesses – some eventually shutting down. Tourism was one of the main industries that were struck hard by the coronavirus. Governments of each country announced social distancing to slow down the spread of infection, so people were forced to be locked into their homes. Even though coronavirus is not completely wiped out, each society is making efforts to bring back daily lives that we have enjoyed previously. The main part of these efforts is encouraging people to go somewhere and spend some money, which is a byword of tourism. The SM Herald had already covered several subjects related to coronavirus during two years, including how to stay safe during this crisis and global status of this ongoing threat. So, it would be appropriate to tell the story about our lives after COVID-19 and naturally led us to put the spotlight on the return of tourism.
I believe it was February 2020 that marked the beginning of this long, yet critical time to the tourism industry. Countries over the world shut down their borders orderly, making no chance for tourists to make new visits to other countries. Tourist companies naturally had to shut down most of their businesses since no one was allowed to visit other nations or even near towns to stop COVID-19 from spreading from one place to another. Employees of the tourism industry mostly lost their jobs temporarily or even permanently. Everyone knew that once the spread of COVID-19 slows down, governments of each country will eventually release people to move around and spend some money to revive local economies, but nobody knew when it will be - until now.
People In Search of Vacation Are Spreading Everywhere
Domestic cases first. Because of the Ukrainian War, oil prices skyrocket due to shortage on supply. Gasoline prices were over two thousand won per liter, but it could not stop people from traveling around every weekend. Traffic jams were much more severe than a few months earlier, despite those unacceptably high oil prices. Gas prices are partially settled down currently, and joint with autumn colored season made citizens visit high mountains placed nationwide. The most popular mountain for viewing autumn colors, Mount Seorak is suffering from congestion at eight in the morning. If you arrive later in the afternoon, you have no chance of watching that beautiful scenery because you would be standing in a row waiting for others to pull up their cars from the parking lot.
Winding the clock further back, summer of this year recorded fifty thousand people gathered in Haeundae just two days after they opened up the beach for swimming and leisure sports. During times when coronavirus’ spread was threatening, ticket prices of domestic flights were much cheaper than before. Just after social distancing came to a halt, that price dramatically rose to near twice of what airline companies asked during those hard times. Price of airline is decided by demand and supply, so we can know demand for domestic airline has skyrocketed than before, a crucial hint of revival of tourism.
Not Only Is Domestic Tourism Back, But Also Traveling Abroad Too
Moving on to foreign countries, Japan recently announced that travelers could visit their country without approval of visa. Policy that let entry without visa enticed lots of Koreans to travel to Japan, which led flights between Korea and Japan to be fully occupied during coming months. Convenience of entering Japan helped promote tourism of Japan greatly, but that is not the single reason why many Koreans headed to Japan.
Secondary reason for high popularity on visiting Japan is because currency exchange rate of Yen is considerably lower than other countries. That is also partly because of the aftermath of COVID-19. During the severe spread of the coronavirus, the United States maintained its economy by giving away money to citizens to keep people spending money on goods, and that eventually led to inflation and rise of standard interest rate. Japan, on the other hand, has not increased the standard interest rate as America is doing. This made the value of the Yen drop, eventually encouraging foreigners to visit Japan and easily spend some cash without any hassle. Similar reason applies to European nations, so we can easily see people going on business trips or genuine trips to Japan or Europe.
It has been a long time since we had a chance to freely roam everywhere without any obstacles and worries. As a constant traveler, the ban on both visiting foreign countries and nearby towns was heartbreaking, yet hard to withstand. We are still under the effects of COVID-19, but as we hoped to be free from this disease, humanity and our society is slowly heading back to be normal. Recovery of tourism helps us imagine a future that is completely liberated from coronavirus, and relief that unemployed people are back in their businesses.
Sources: https://flexible.img.hani.co.kr/flexible/normal/937/562/imgdb/child/2020/1012/53_16024798644662_6716024797532708.jpg (Image 1)
https://image.edaily.co.kr/images/Photo/files/NP/S/2019/10/PS19100600218.jpg (Image 2)
