But the South Korean tourism industry is hoping to recover this summer, according to Jason Chung, chief executive officer of NexTour (Travelocity Company).
Chung said although the Korean media are continuing to cover H1N1, it is not the top headline news in the Asian country.
In fact, Chung said airlines recorded the highest boarding rates this year, including the Golden Week season on May 1-10.
Chung said the 10 percent cancellation rate due to swine flu were from the statistics of 5,101 outbound travel agents in South Korea.
He said the Korean Tourism Organization is forecasting 9.5 million outbound travelers in 2009, or less than the 11.9 million outbound travelers in 2008.
This decrease, he said, in addition to the swine flu scare, was due to the global economic slowdown and the weakening of the Korean currency against the dollar.
But Chung said the outbound travel to the CNMI increased by 2.6 percent in 2008, compared to the 10 percent overall decrease as a result of the aggressive promotion of the Marianas Visitors Authority, its travel partners and nontraditional partners.
The CNMI and Australia are the 10th major destinations for Korean outbound travelers with a 1.4 percent market share.
China is the Korean traveler’s the top destination, followed by Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan, the U.S. and Singapore.
Chung said from January to April this year, 29,088 of South Korea’s over three million outbound travelers visited the CNMI.
