SOUTH KOREA. As the MERS threat begins to ease in South Korea, June passenger statistics for Korean airports from respected UK aviation analysts Air4Casts underline the dramatic impact on tourism of the health crisis.
The holiday island of Jeju, which offers visa-free travel for Chinese, suffered particularly badly with international passenger traffic falling by -53.2% year-on-year. Chinese visitor numbers to Jeju (the principal revenue source for international travel retail) fell by -62%.
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Accumulative figures of selected arrivals to South Korea by purpose and nationality for the five months to May 2015; June’s numbers are certain to tell a very different story. Source: Korea Tourism Organization |
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This graph shows how the previously booming inbound Korean visitor market went into startling reverse in June at most of the country’s international airports |
Cheongju international traffic slumped -48.1% and Seoul Gimpo Airport was off by -25.2%. Incheon International Airport, which enjoys a large percentage of transfer traffic, was less affected overall (in passenger number terms though the decline in point-to-point Chinese traffic hit its travel retail revenues hard) at -9.2% down year-on-year. Busan Airport generated a modest +0.6% passenger gain in June.
The Jeju results make stark reading. Arrivals from Beijing were off by -64% year-on-year in June and from Shanghai Pudong by -49%. Arrivals from Hong Kong were down by 70% and those from Taipei by -86%.
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Ouch: For once Jeju’s hitherto healthy reliance on Chinese tourism backfires as the MERS threat deters travellers from visiting the holiday island. Source: Air4Casts |
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The Jeju numbers tell their own brutal story |
