Flight reservation to Southeast Asia surge for Chuseok amid travel boycott to Japan

There are few passengers at the check-in counter for flights to Japan at Incheon International Airport. [Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

South Koreans picked Southeast Asian countries as their top travel destinations for Chuseok Holiday next week, with Japanese locations that had traditionally grabbed top ranks falling off the list amid trade conflicts.

Local e-commerce platform WeMakePrice analyzed airline ticket reservations by Koreans for September 7 to 15 and found Vietnam’s Da Nang ranked top of the list by accounting for 12.6 percent of international flight ticket sales, followed by Guam (6 percent) and the Philippine’s Cebu (5.4 percent). Japan’s Osaka that had grabbed the second spot with a 13.8 percent booking rate following Da Nang last year fell to the fifth, and other Japanese destinations including Fukuoka, Tokyo and Okinawa that had made the top five last year failed to be included in the list this year.

Da Nang, the fourth largest city in Vietnam, has become one of the favorite vacation destinations by Koreans. Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, came in ninth, with flight ticket reservation by Koreans surging 456 percent from the same period last year. Airline ticket purchases for Thailand’s Bangkok also soared 249 percent from the previous Chuseok holiday, and those for Guam and Cebu also jumped 123 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

Japanese cities were traditionally the top picks by Koreans for relatively short Chuseok holidays, but this year, Koreans picked Southeast Asian nations instead amid mounting anti-Japanese sentiment following Tokyo’s trade restrictions on Seoul. Airline ticket reservations for Japanese locations plunged 64 percent on average, with Osaka down 62 percent, Fukuoka 66 percent and Tokyo 71 percent, compared to last year.

Danang in Vietnam. [Photo by WemakePrice]

WeMakePrice said many customers who had booked flights to Japanese cities for Chuseok holiday earlier than July canceled their reservations after Japan imposed export curbs on Korea in July.

A survey done by local job portal Saramin on 2,570 corporate employees last week found that 37.3 percent chose Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia for their favorite overseas travel destinations, followed by the Greater China regions including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau selected by 20 percent of the respondents, while only 8 percent picked Japanese cities.

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