Some Shanghai travel agencies resumed their travel routes to South Korea yesterday after a 17-month-long suspension, with the earliest departure being on September 1.

For the Shanghai institutions that have restarted their South Korea travel business, they are still following the principle of “no cruise, no charter flight, no subsidiary companies of the Lotte Group (such as hotels and duty-free shops)”.

In March last year, in order to protest South Korea’s deployment of the US “Sade” missile defense system and the Korean Lotte Group’s deployment of “Sade”, domestic travel agencies and online travel companies announced that they would suspend their travel to Korea. Subsequently, the National Tourism Administration issued a statement to remind Chinese citizens to “know the risk of outbound travel and carefully choose the destination”. Chinese tourists to South Korea have declined sharply in the past 17 months, severely affecting the Korean tourism industry.

According to data from the Korea National Tourism Organization, the number of Chinese tourists to Korea last year was just over 4.1million, a year-on-year decrease of 48.3%. According to local statistics in Korea, sales of Lotte Duty Free Shop last year were 5.5 trillion Korean won, a year-on-year decrease of 1 billion won (about 6 million yuan); and its operating profit was sharply reduced by 99.2% to 2.5 billion won (about 14.9 million yuan) from 330.1 billion won in 2016, its lowest level in history.