Joo, Yong Tae
General-Director of Tourism & Sports
Seoul Metropolitan Government
Q: Is your business / organization affected by the recent outbreak of coronavirus? To what extent?
A: The outbreak has had a significant impact on all walks of life in Seoul, while tourism as a highly market-oriented industry suffered from revenue loss by the biggest margin. The situation had brought an abrupt halt to the tourism industry, causing huge direct losses to travel agencies, airlines, hospitality and MICE businesses. As of March 4, 4408 enterprises had lodged their applications for temporary closedown with the Ministry of Employment and Labor of Korea, including 1256 from the tourism industry, 556 from manufacturing and 471 from education. In February 2020, the sales of outbound tourism products of Hanatour decreased by 84.8% on year-to-year basis, while that of Modetour decreased by 77% compared to last year. Reception at the scenic spots in Seoul also witnessed a downturn with the number of tourists visiting the four major palaces, temples and Royal Tombs being 320,000 in February, a year-on-year decrease of 62.7%. Many ongoing popular Korean travel reality shows, such as the “Battle Trip” of KBS, have scheduled to suspend recording and broadcasting. The impacts of the COVID-19 on Seoul’s tourism seem to be far greater than that of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2015.
Q: According to your optimistic estimate, how long will it take for tourism to fully recover from the negative impact of the outbreak?
A: By July we should be able to see a certain degree of recovery. The full recovery of Seoul’s tourism market will take another four months or fewer after the epidemic ends completely in China and Korea. We can get some clues from the data collected during MERS in Seoul five years ago. Before the outbreak in May 2015, Korea’s inbound tourism maintained a growth momentum of more than 10%. The number of overseas tourists fell sharply in June with a year-on-year decrease of 41%, followed by another 53.5% dive in July. After the situation calmed down at the end of July, we immediately saw numbers bounce back to normal level in September and October.
We are still optimistic about the recovery of Seoul’s tourism market. I know many Chinese friends had taken the opportunity to watch the latest popular Korean TV series “Crash Landing on You” and “Itaewon Class” during their stay at home. The movie “Parasite” had lately brought back four academy awards. These are the bonus points for Seoul’s tourism. Recently we even developed a tour to the location where the movie “Parasite” was shot in Seoul. I hope more friends will find their passion in Seoul through excellent Korean films or television shows and decide to come and visit when things are back to normal.
Q: What do you think is a key point that our industry must pay attention to when it recovers from the crisis? (Please pick only one)
A: For a government, it is the most important to figure out its role to play in the response to the outbreak. We should make clear what the government can and should do, what is positive and effective, and what is ineffective and even troublesome. The government needs to hold the bottom line during the epidemic and seek revitalization afterwards, provide financial assistance and cut interest rates when necessary to build an environment that helps the businesses to recover and the whole industry to pass through the difficulties. When we say that the government must rescue the market, we are not indicating that the government should help certain individual enterprises and interfere with the market rules. Rather, the government should help the whole industry to make a living, so that it can survive the crisis, avoid compulsory redundancies, and retain productivity. Because after all, survival comes first, and development second. As above mentioned, 1256 tourism enterprises had lodged their applications for closing down. These enterprises still need to pay 70% of the wages as required by the law while their employees are waiting for going back to work. Our government will try its best to provide financial assistance to the maximum extent In this regard.
Q: What change (positive or negative) do you think the outbreak may eventually bring to the tourism industry in the future? (Please pick only one)
A: Sensitive to external factors, tourism as an industry is exposed to a variety of risks and therefore rather vulnerable. That being said, tourism is also known for its low operating threshold and a long supply chain consisting of catering, hospitality, travel, sight-seeing, shopping and entertainment businesses, making it an industry with great resilience and vitality. After the epidemic, we should expect a restructure in the tourism industry, that is to say, an industrywide shuffle. Only such high-quality businesses that had figured out how to cut back on spending, divest bad businesses, reduce management and operation costs, and coordinate efficiently in their own practices of self-help and self-improvement could eventually survive the crisis and bring a new round of quality development to the industry. The sudden outbreak is a tough trial for the tourism community. To survive from the test, one must seek change through thinking, and develop through innovation. The difficulty is a touchstone. Keep refining ourselves, we will achieve development through hard working, and harvest more valuable potentials, qualities and partnerships after the crisis.
This upgrading or evolution of the industry is proven. When the MERS in Seoul settled down in 2015, in order to restore the market as soon as possible, the industry paid more attention to the maintenance of public health and the feedback of tourists, cooperated closely with each other to provide high-quality tourist services; the employees became more appreciative of work opportunities, more pleasant to speak to, and more attentive to their customers; the government issued regulations to guarantee that prices are clearly marked, adopted measures to severely punish fraudulent behaviors, introduced menus in foreign language, added Chinese explanations and tour guide services at the four major palaces and temples, set additional complaint centers, and strengthened the quality management of group tour products. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea launched a nationwide campaign named K-smile (Korean people smile and welcome tourists), which laid a solid foundation of public support, making tourism a hotter topic of the society. From this series of measures that continue to this day, we could tell that the tourism industry had not only strengthened its marketing efforts in foreign markets after the epidemic, but also achieved a leap forward in quality through self-evolvement.
Q: Please share with us a story of your business / organization in dealing with the crisis that others may draw experience from. (Please focus on one aspect)
A: As we slowly return to our normal life, there will be a new market to be transformed from huge demand and a rebound of passenger flow awaiting ahead of us. To prepare ourselves, we need to work on our inner strength, plan ahead of time, seize the opportunity and keep our mind spinning despite the stillness of business. On the second day of the Lunar New Year when the epidemic in Hubei was still in its early stage, the Tourism & Sports Bureau of Seoul established an emergency response working group and adopted a daily reporting mechanism to monitor the trends of domestic tourism, overseas tourism and government responses. We made sure our information sharing was rapid and transparent so that all our employees were on the same page. Later on, a three-step strategy was formulated and updated in real time for the revitalization of Seoul’s tourism with different priorities designed for the different stages of the epidemic course, namely the response stage (February to March), the recovery stage (March to June), and the revitalization stage (June ~). Before Korea was struck by the virus, KOLs of tourism businesses were brought together for a meeting, at which practical guidance was provided.
In this time of epidemic, we pay more attention to the communication with our Chinese partners. The more difficult it becomes, the more we need to strengthen the ties. We have established cooperative relations with such provinces and municipalities as Beijing, Hunan, Sichuan, Xi’an and Guizhou as well as the online platform of Mafengwo.com. Through these channels we’ve been cheering each other up, sharing anti-epidemic practices and countermeasures, exchanging cooperation ideas, and planning down-to-earth cooperation projects after the crisis. We will work together to reduce the negative impacts.
At present, the number of confirmed cases in Korea is indeed large. Up to date, there are more than 7000 cases, most of which are in Daegu. However, what must also be brought into consideration is the size of tested population. Korea has tested more than 190,000 cases in total, more than the total number of tested people in the rest of the world except China. This reflects the commitment and efficiency of a responsible country in this war against the epidemic. Overcame the MERS in 2015, Korea improved its national first-aid and long-term epidemic prevention & control system, which today enables us to do test very quickly with results coming out in just a few hours. Compared with that in 2015, the time needed for diagnosis has been greatly shortened. In this outbreak, we quickly developed and put into use in the whole country a “Drive-thru” system inspired by the drive-through ordering system at the fast food restaurants. The new system makes it possible to perform the entire sampling process through several windows with the person being tested staying on the vehicle the whole time. Just like ordering fast food, the patients drive by themselves, roll down the window for registration, diagnosis and treatment, sampling, disinfection and then drive away, without having to get off their cars. This practice has greatly saved time. A regular test station may test on two persons in one hour or 20 people in a day, while a Drive-thru station can finish one test within 10 minutes, which means 60 test in one day. It is worth mentioning that the new practice minimizes unnecessary contact and therefore better protects the safety of the medical staff. The only way for us to respond to the crisis, whether in the fight against the epidemic or the recovery later on, is always being honest and efficient.