South Koreans flock overseas as 'revenge travel' booms amid easing of curbs

SEOUL • After spending two years being socially distanced in his home country of South Korea, Mr Kim Hoe-jun booked a last-minute flight to Hawaii, where he had enjoyed his honeymoon six years ago, giving in to his craving for overseas travel.

"I bought the ticket just a week ago, but it was rather a no-brainer. It felt like I was making up for those two years not being able to go abroad often as I used to before Covid-19," he said, before boarding the plane from Incheon International Airport last Friday.

Vaccinated and boosted, Mr Kim and his wife are among South Koreans joining in a rush for "revenge travel" - a term that has been trending on social media as people scramble to book overseas trips that were delayed by coronavirus restrictions.

The boom started last month when the country announced it would lift a seven-day mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers arriving from most countries. The curb had been eased last year but was reimposed in December as the highly infectious Omicron variant spread.

South Korea has largely scrapped its once-aggressive tracing and containment efforts despite a record Covid-19 wave, joining a growing list of countries which have eased quarantine rules, including Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Also, South Koreans now appear more ready to travel. Polls showed people are less worried about the implications of catching the virus, and increasingly see its prevention as out of their hands.

Sales of overseas flight tickets on 11st, an e-commerce unit of SK Telecom, South Korea's top mobile carrier, rose more than eightfold compared with a year before between March 11, when the lifting of quarantine was announced, and March 27, the company said.

Airlines and travel agencies have reported exploding demand for trips to Hawaii, Saipan and Guam, as well as some destinations in Europe and South-east Asia where tourists submitting a vaccination certificate or negative test result are exempted from quarantine.

Saipan and Guam, both of which have travel bubble pacts with South Korea, also offer free Covid-19 testing and pay for quarantine expenses if a traveller tests positive.

The tourism arm of online retail giant Interpark reported a 324 per cent growth in flight bookings for Oceania from March 11 to 22 from the same period of last year, a 268 per cent increase for South-east Asia and 262 per cent more bookings for Europe.

REUTERS