Major travel agencies in Taiwan said yesterday that their South -Korea-related business is not being affected by public outrage over a major dispute involving South Korean sports officials.
“No one has canceled any booking for South Korea travel programs so far,” said Vincent Lin, vice president of the Taipei-based Lion Travel Service.
A source for Comfort Travel Service, another major local travel agency, also said that the dispute hasn’t had a negative impact on the company’s business so far.
There were calls for a boycott of South Korean products and TV programs after Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) was disqualified on Wednesday at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, when the chief referee, a South Korean national, said that she had extra sensors on her electronic socks, in violation of the rules.
Even though Yang’s electronic socks had been approved in a pre-match inspection, the judges decided that her electronic socks, used to register successful kicks, did not meet official requirements. She was then disqualified from the 49kg-division match with 12 seconds left in the first round.
Her treatment sparked -outrage in Taiwan toward South Korea as Yang Jin-suk, secretary-general of the World Taekwondo Federation, like the chief referee, is also from that country.
The controversy is the latest episode in a long-running feud between Taiwan and South Korea in international sports arena.
On the Internet, many Taiwanese called for a boycott of South Korean goods, including a popular pickle known as kimchi.
Several stores said they would no longer welcome South Korean customers, according to local media reports.
According to Lin, South Korea has become a popular tourist destination for Taiwanese people in the past two years, partly due to the increasing popularity of South Korea soap operas in Taiwan.
“For example, about 80 or 90 percent of local flights to South Korea have been booked all the way until December,” he said.
The number of Taiwanese tourists to South Korea grew 36.87 percent in September this year from a year earlier, new government figures show. The number rose 3.51 percent during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period of last year.
Lin said that the 3.51 percent growth is considered substantial because last year’s comparison baseline was high.
Lin thought that local people were “rather rational” about the dispute, but added that his company would not promote tour packages for South Korea in an active manner at a sensitive moment like this.
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