China allows travel agencies in Jiangsu Province to resume group tours to S. Korea

All News 17:29 August 29, 2018

SHANGHAI, Aug. 29 (Yonhap) -- China's tourism authorities decided Wednesday to allow travel agencies in Jiangsu Province, eastern China, to resume group tours to South Korea, in yet another step by Beijing toward the normalization of Chinese visitors' trips to the neighboring country, industry sources said.

The decision by China's National Tourism Administration in the city of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu, came after Beijing partially lifted its bans on package tours to South Korea.

China has lifted the ban for Beijing, Shandong Province, Hubei Province, Chongqing and Shanghai since March last year, when it took a set of retaliatory measures against Seoul, including a ban on group tours, following the installation of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in southeastern South Korea.

In November, Seoul and Beijing agreed to put their bilateral ties back on track by lifting the ban and other sanctions, setting aside their bitter row over the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery.

Under Wednesday's decision, travel agencies in Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu Province are allowed to organize package tours to South Korea. But they are only allowed to draw tourists on groups tours to South Korea through offline marketing. The placement of ads in newspapers and on the Internet is prohibited.

The authorities also require the tour packages not to include visits to affiliates of Lotte Group, such as its hotels and duty-free shops. The South Korean retail giant is one of the companies most affected by Beijing's economic retaliation due to its land-swap deal with the Seoul government to host the THAAD system.

As is the case with the four other regions, which were affected by the lifting of the travel ban, the authorities did not lift the ban on running chartered planes or cruise ship tours to South Korea.

With the travel ban lifted in Jiangsu, the neighboring Zhejiang Province, which accounted for one-third of group tours to South Korea along with Shanghai and Jiangsu, is expected to follow suit soon.