KTO looking ahead to brighter 2016

Inbound tourism to Korea started off strong in 2015 and continued to show steady growth in the first half of the year before declining over the following six months, according to year-end statistics released by the Korea Tourism Organization this week.

The first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was confirmed in May of 2015 and significantly impacted the travel market in the second half of the year. KTO’s Toronto Director Doojo Kim said that in July, the Canadian market alone dropped by 26.2 per cent; however, year-end Canadian stats were only down 0.6 per cent from 2014 at 145,547 travellers, which Kim attributed to the board’s tourism recovery campaign.

Tourism numbers for 2016 are expected to recover, the KTO said, due to factors such as the ongoing promotion of Korea as a tourism destination by the travel industry and the commencement of daily non-stop service from Toronto to Seoul by Korean Air and Air Canada, beginning June 1 and June 17 respectively.