Waiting for Olympic ticket sales in South Korea
WORKERS in the South Korean resort town of Pyeongchang are making final preparations for the Winter Olympics, remaking roads, renovating buildings and preparing menus in English, Chinese and Japanese, a burst of activity that masks a big problem.
With less than 100 days before the Games begin, barely a third of the tickets have been sold.
“It’s a bummer,” said 55-year-old motel owner Oh Young-whyan, who spent about $360 000 (R5.1 million) refurbishing his 15-room property close to the Olympics Plaza.
Other hotel owners and local authorities say political tensions with North Korea and China have chilled foreign interest in the Games, which open on February 9 just 80km from the world’s most heavily fortified border.
Tourists are reluctant to commit to the event as North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, and US President Donald Trump trade insults and threats of mutual destruction after the North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September.
Ticket sales are weak, with only 34% of the total sold, much weaker than during the run-up to the last winter Games in Sochi, Russia. More than 70% of Sochi’s tickets were sold before the opening ceremony.
Pyeongchang Organising Committee secretary-general Yeo Hyung-koo said there was still time to catch up. The Olympics torch relay, which began in South Korea last Wednesday, would ignite domestic interest, he said.
Local business are also putting on a brave face, hoping for a late surge in interest, especially from Chinese tourists after Beijing this week set aside a dispute with Seoul over an anti-missile system.
“We still have 100 days so I’m not that worried,” said Oh, owner of the Daekyanryung-sanbang motel, where Olympics banners were hung inside and out.
Before this week’s diplomatic breakthrough, Chinese authorities had unofficially imposed a ban on tour groups visiting South Korea since March and stopped charter flights.
The number of Chinese visitors, which accounted for nearly half of all foreign tourists into South Korea last year, slumped 61% from March to September from the same period last year, official data shows.
Yangyang International Airport, the only international airport near Pyengchang, was quiet, with flight routes from Shanghai and seven other Chinese cities all cut since last November.
Min Byong-kwan, of Phoenix Hotels & Resorts, is counting on a pick-up. The ski resort spent tens of millions of dollars building six Olympics courses and renovating some 1 000 rooms to accommodate foreign officials during the Olympics. – Reuters