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Chinese tourists form a crowd at the duty free goods delivery area of Incheon International airport on Dec. 22. (Yonhap News)

South Korean group visits by Chinese tourists are facing new restrictions after previous ones were lifted ahead of President Moon Jae-in’s China visit, sources report. According to accounts on Dec. 22 from travel industry sources in China, authorities in Beijing and Shandong Province plan to withdraw permissions granted on Nov. 28 for group tours to South Korea and impose another temporary halt as of January.

In some cities in Shandong Province, government officials have summoned travel agencies to meetings to notify them, with a similar meeting reportedly set to take place in Beijing on Dec. 26. While some Beijing travel agencies are still selling tour packages for January, their official position is that “no customers have been found.” The possibility of a sales halt in the near future appears high.

South Korean diplomatic officials reportedly described the situation to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs as “unintended.” When asked about the suspension of group tours in a Dec. 22 regular briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “According to my information, the relevant report mentioned by you [the reported] is inconsistent with the fact.” But with Chinese authorities consistently claiming to “know nothing” about the group travel suspensions since they were imposed in March, any change in stance from authorities is unlikely to come in a visible way.

The restriction measures are difficult to understand, particularly as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang made remarks during Moon’s state visit last week regarding improvements in relations with South Korea. The prevailing view among industry observers was that the measures were intended to slow things down after China went overboard with “good will” measures in easing the two sides’ conflict with Moon’s visit.

Observers are pointing in particular to FAM tours, large-scale invitational promotions held by private groups that worried authorities by failing to conform to intended aims. Initially, South Korean trips out of Beijing were available to people from any region as long as the travel agency and point of departure were in Beijing, while Shandong Province restricted availability to people with household registration (hukou) in the province. The claim is that authorities were troubled by FAM tours billed as accommodating “150 people from 12 provinces,” regardless of region.

For South Korean travel businesses, the measures are certain to hurt – coming as a bolt from the blue while many were preparing to find the necessary staff and resources after news that group tours would be resuming.

“Some of the companies are in a bind now after just managing to coax back old employees who had quit and were doing other things,” an industry source said.

But another source said, “Packages are still focused on individual tours the way they have been in the past, and if we see the situation with group tours as being a little bit overheated due to the Winter Olympics, then I’m sure they will start up again before long.”

The South Korean government is also expected to take steps to convince China. Meeting with reporters at the Blue House press center on Dec. 22, a senior Blue House official said the lifting of restrictions on group tourists to South Korea “is something Chinese Premier Li Keqiang promised at the South Korea-China summit.”

“We will continue asking [China] for follow-up measures to ensure this is effectively implemented,” the official said.

By Kim Oi-hyun, Beijing correspondent and Seong Yeon-cheol and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporters

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