Growth in foreigners' cancellations of trips to South Korea slowed sharply last week, data showed Sunday, amid signs the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak is subsiding thanks to stepped-up efforts to contain the potentially deadly virus.
South Korea reported three more MERS cases Sunday, bringing the total number of people diagnosed with the disease here to 169. The death toll stood at 25, as the number of people in isolation for suspected infections came to 4,035, down from 5,197 the previous day.
According to the data by the state-run Korea Tourism Organization, a total of 1,760 foreigners canceled their trips to South Korea on Friday, up a mere 1.43 percent from the previous day.
The number of trip cancellations by foreign tourists fell from 4,470 Tuesday to 3,710 Wednesday and to 1,879 a day later.
Between June 1, when the first MERS death was reported here, and Thursday, 123,390 foreigners canceled their trips to South Korea, with people from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong taking up the bulk, or 92,975.
Concerns over MERS are especially high among the Chinese after a South Korean man who tested positive for the virus flew to Hong Kong on May 26 and subsequently went to southern China, which was widely reported in local media, according to experts.
Hit hard by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, Chinese are more cautious over the development of the contagious disease in South Korea.
The Chinese are South Korea's biggest tourist group, with the number of travelers from the nation surpassing 6 million for the first time in 2014.
The MERS outbreak has dealt a harsh blow to the local tourism and retail industries, which have been scrambling to attract more Chinese travelers this year amid tepid domestic consumption.
A travel agency official said the number of foreign visitors to South Korea is expected to tumble some 30 percent in June from a year earlier. A total of 1.26 million foreigners visited South Korea in June last year. (Yonhap)
