Jinnam in the south of Korea is the site of the world's largest cherry blossom festival "Jinhaung Port Festival".

(Photo provided by Klook)

[Reporter Chen Xinyu/Taipei Report] The South Korean government promotes the "Visit Korea Year" for tourism. Today (29th) it announced that tourists from 22 countries including Taiwan will be exempted from applying for K-ETA until the end of 2024. Each person can save The application fee is 10,000 won, about NT$234. However, Taiwanese travel operators believe that it will not have a big impact on driving Taiwanese tourists to visit Korea, because independent travelers don’t care about the 234 yuan, and group tourists are also handled by travel agencies. Well, the more troublesome thing is that the K-ETA application has already been completed for passengers including those who leave the tour during the Qingming Festival. Some passengers may request a refund, but the travel agency fee has been paid and cannot be refunded.

Before the epidemic (2019), 1.26 million Taiwanese traveled to South Korea every year, ranking third among international tourists in South Korea.

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Chang Guoqing, member of the Travel Trade Safety Committee of the Association for Quality Assurance of the Travel Industry of the Republic of China and deputy general manager of World Travel Agency, said that nearly 80% of the travel market to South Korea is self-guided, and about 20% to 30% are groups.

The Korea Tourism Organization also announced that starting from April 1 this year, Taiwan tourists traveling to South Korea will be exempted from applying for K-ETA, and there will be one less procedure for traveling to South Korea. Ask a question on the official website of the Tourism Organization "Ask Us".

Chang Guoqing said that there were requests to cancel it before, because it was the travel agencies who suffered the most. Although the cancellation of K-ETA has little effect on driving Taiwanese to Korea, it will greatly reduce the burden on travel agencies, because 90% of the consumers of tour groups will request The travel agency assists in the operation. If the information provided by the customer is incorrect and affects the correctness of the K-ETA information, it cannot be changed. You must spend money to make another copy. Therefore, it is beneficial to the travel agency, saving manpower and time.

Chang Guoqing pointed out that the upcoming 5-day Ching Ming Festival coincides with the cherry blossom viewing season in South Korea, and the tour groups are full. Yes, there are already many parent-child groups asking about it during the summer vacation.

The South Korean government is promoting the "Visit Korea Year" for tourism, and announced today (29th) that tourists from 22 countries, including Taiwan, will be exempted from applying for K-ETA until the end of 2024 from April 1st.

(The picture is provided by Korea Light Commune)