'Forced shopping' present in tourist packages: Seoul

Tourists photograph Gyeongbokgung in Seoul, Saturday. (Yonhap)

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday it has conducted secret inspections into recent allegations of forced shopping, with findings confirming that such practices exist on some level among tourism packages here.

The city hired several foreign nationals to pose as tourists in seven low-priced package tours -- three that were sold in China and four sold in Vietnam -- to check the programs' quality. Most of the packages focused more on shopping than tourism, which the city government's agents said hindered them from enjoying Seoul's history and culture.

Each package included four to eight visits to local shopping malls and many products sold there did not clearly state the country of origin or date of manufacture. It was reported that tour guides treated the tourists differently depending on how much they spent on shopping, and had recommended purchasing items on several occasions.

On one occasion, the guide prevented tourists from exiting a shopping mall for 40 minutes until one bought something.

In contrast to the extensive shopping schedule, tour programs were brief and often canceled. In one case, a host did not provide an alternate program after the tour of Seoul Forest was canceled due to rain, forcing the tourists to spend the time at the hotel.

Based on the recent findings, Seoul vowed to crack down on forced shopping in tourism packages, seeking cooperation from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism while pursuing legal actions against such low-quality programs if necessary. Officials did stress that not all tourism packages are of such low quality, saying that this particular inspection was focused on a few low-priced packages.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)