Korean Air and the Hotel Shilla held a welcome event and familiarization tour to invite heads of travel agencies and journalists in Chinese cities at Entry Gate A on the first floor in Incheon International Airport on July 13.
Participants in the tour have been arriving in the country from July 8, and about 200 people from 12 Chinese cities, including Tianjin, Shenyang, Beijing, and Shanghai, entered the country on July 13 alone. The total number of participants will be 300, the largest number ever counted.
The familiarization tour will be carried out in two different modes – basic and free traveling. Chinese tourists in the basic mode are staying in Korea for two nights and three days from July 13 to 15. On the first day, they visited Incheon International Medical Center and Songdo International Business District, and then had dinner at Grand Hyatt Incheon. On the second day, they visited Dongdaemun Gate, Namsan Mountain's Fortress Wall of Seoul, Hotel Shilla, and the Shilla Duty Free Shop. Then they will have a welcoming event at Samcheonggak and watch a performance at Chongdong Theater. On the last day, they will visit Samsung Everland and Samsung Innovation Museum, then return to China. The basic tour is a private and public joint program organized by the Korea Tourism Organization, Incheon International Airport Corporation, and Seoul City, as well as Korean Air and Hotel Shilla.
For the free style tour, a total of 100 tourists from five cities, including Changsha and Wuhan, will visit Korea for three nights and four days or four nights and five days from July 8 to 21, visiting the nation’s tourist attractions in Seoul and Jeju Island on their own.
In particular, Korean Air is playing a leading role in the familiarization tour in order to normalize Korea’s tourism demand, which is sluggish due to the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The airline company has offered free plane tickets for participants. Also, officials of Korean Air branches in 17 cities of China joined the basic and free style tours to guide groups of tourists. The Hotel Shilla has also offered 200 rooms to participants for free, and an opportunity to visit the Shilla Duty Free Shop and Samsung Public Information Hall, making efforts to overcome the effects of MERS.
Meanwhile, Korean Air is also planning to carry out large familiarization tours for Japanese and Southeast Asian tourists to boost tourism. From the end of this month, it will invite about 200 participants, including officials at the prefectures, journalists, and agency officials in seven regions of Japan: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Okayama, and Niigata. Also, it will invite about 100 participants, including journalists and agency officials in seven countries – Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore – at the beginning of Aug., introducing Korea’s taste and flavor.