A South Korean travel agency was fined for forcing Chinese tourists to shop
South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on the 15th that a South Korean travel agency has been punished by suspending business and rectifying for forcing Chinese group tourists to shop.
According to a statement released on the official website of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of South Korea, this travel agency used unreasonable low prices to attract Chinese group tourists and forced tourists to shop. The statement did not name the travel agency.
The statement said that a Chinese tourist who used the travel agency's services reported to the Complaint Center in February this year that the tour guide forced him to make purchases. The Korea Travel Industry Association discovered that this was indeed the case during the investigation, and then imposed a 30-day suspension of business on the travel agency involved. Follow-up investigation found that the travel agency had “outsourced” duty-free shop shopping items to a non-designated travel agency many times. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ordered the travel agency to suspend operations for rectification on the 14th and canceled its qualification to receive Chinese group tours.
According to Yonhap News Agency, this is the first time that the South Korean government has imposed administrative penalties on a travel agency for related violations since it established penalty regulations for disrupting the order of the tourism industry in 2016.
Officials from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of South Korea said that there were approximately 3.4 million tourists visiting South Korea in the first quarter of this year, with the largest number of Chinese tourists at 1.01 million, returning to the top of the list of foreign tourists visiting South Korea. In order to support the healthy growth of the Chinese group travel market to South Korea, South Korea will strengthen the investigation and handling of behaviors that disrupt market order and strive to improve tourist satisfaction.
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