The outbreak of COVID-19 and its impact in South Korea’s Tourism: A hope in Domestic Tourism

Kapil Gurung

doi:10.31940/jasth.v4i1.2332

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has resulted an unprecedented impact on global economy. However, South Korea is effectively controlling the pandemic by implementing different level of social distancing measure. Most of the events are either postponed or cancelled and public places are operating by maintaining social distance and mandatory use of mask. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the future impact on tourism and hospitality industry caused by social distancing due to pandemic. The conceptual methodology was used to discuss on the secondary data from various sources. The finding states that the flight operations were halted, hotel occupancy reduced, and employees forced to take unpaid leave. In addition, the result discussed on the negative impact on tourism and hospitality sector due to pandemic. This paper concludes with few positive signs in domestic tourism sector and suggestion for authority to execute best policy in future for whole tourism industry.

Highlights

South Korea took prompt action against the outbreak of COVID-19 as the World Health Organization advised necessary procedures to contain the widespread
This paper highlighted the tourism industry in South Korea which went through disastrous circumstance as flights were cancelled for indefinite time due to outbreak of corona virus
The finding on this paper suggests few managerial implications for Korean tourism industry

Summary

Introduction

South Korea took prompt action against the outbreak of COVID-19 as the World Health Organization advised necessary procedures to contain the widespread. Korean government quickly responded to the pandemic in Korea, its export led economic activity has fallen sharply due to collapse in global demand. South Korea saw expansion in tourism activities from the past few decades, pushed by global popularity of K-dramas and K-pop, which is termed as the Korean wave or hallyu in Korean language (Bae et al, 2017). Korea never imposed an entry or exit ban to or from the country, it applied a mandatory test for COVID-19 upon arrival at the airport and further two weeks of self-quarantine in a designated place (Ministry of Health and Welfare [MOHW], 2020)

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Conclusion