Tourists are waiting for check-in at the departure hall of Incheon International Airport on the 10th. [김호영 기자]A (63) retired silver retiree, who had planned a trip to Antarctica with eight classmates last February, unfortunately canceled the plan due to COVID-19. However, I was surprised when I called for reservations when I saw that an Antarctic travel product was being planned on the recent Interpark tour. Despite the departure in March of next year and the extra expensive travel cost of 18.9 million won, 10 out of 16 members made reservations, so they had to give up traveling with 8 classmates.
Mr. A said, “Even though the advance deposit is 4 million won, more than half have already made the deposit and confirmed the plan.” said.
Travel sentiment, which was suppressed by COVID-19, is exploding in all directions. Along with resorts such as Saipan and other European regions, interest in ultra-high-priced polar travel is also reviving during peak travel season.
The most impressive change is the recovery of European travel. Europe is a barometer for the recovery of the travel industry. If the sky road in Europe with high customer unit prices is opened, it will soon lead to a recovery in the travel industry.
The Interpark Tour exceeded 100 reservations for all European tours in September. This is more than five times the number of 20 cases in September last year, when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred. The Interpark Tour will depart Turkey on the 22nd and the Swiss team on November 1.
A very good trip, which launched the ‘Best 5 European tours that you can leave immediately this fall’ and sold a complete European tour package for the first time in a year and 10 months after the COVID-19 crisis, is a ‘bump’ level. The company said that by the end of this year, including reservations, a total of 1,423 people have decided to travel to Europe.
It was advertised only for its social networking service (SNS) members (330,000 KakaoTalk friends), but 409 people were listed on the reservation list during the last 5 days, the first day of sales. On the 6th, 247 people and on the 7th, 195 people made reservations, so the total number of reservations for three days reached 851 people.
Compared to 1,799 European travel reservations in the same period (October 5-7) in 2019, before Corona 19, the figure is 47%. In fact, sales have recovered to half the level. This is an increase of more than 1,400 people compared to the total number of customers who made reservations in October last year.
Lee Sang-ho, president of Very Good Travel, said, “The number of reservations scheduled for November, declared by the government as the With Corona period, is the highest with 802.”
Individual travel to Europe is also simmering. On Naver Travel, Korea’s largest individual travel site in Europe with 2 million members, dozens of posts a day about finding a travel companion in Europe are being posted. This means that the psychology of individual travel, not groups, is returning to normal.
On the 8th, the government announced a travel bubble (self-isolation exemption between countries with excellent quarantine) that allows individuals to be exempt from self-isolation only in Singapore on the 8th.
This is in contrast to the case where self-quarantine is exempted only for group travel (package travel) products for Saipan, the country that signed the first travel bubble. Right after the announcement, Very Good Travel quickly introduced individual travel products to Singapore through their website and SNS, and other major travel agencies such as Hana Tour Modetour Interpark are upgrading their free travel products.
An official from the travel industry said, “It is the first time since the Corona crisis to exempt individual travelers, not groups, from quarantine.”
Domestic travel is already far beyond the pre-COVID level. In the case of Good Travel, as the Golden Week holiday was formed as an alternative holiday for Hangeul Day on the 9th, the total number of domestic travel reservations from October 1 to 8 was 877, which was more than 100 more than the 726 just before the corona crisis.
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