In an effort to attract more foreign tourists, the South Korean Justice Ministry proposed a measure to allow foreigners visiting on cruises to disembark without a visa for short stays.
The “tour landing permit” system will allow those on cruise ships to disembark in South Korea and stay for up to three days without a visa, if the cruise company or the ship’s captain applies for and receives the permit beforehand, officials said.
The move is good news for Royal Caribbean because they had about 55,000 tourists from China to Busan, South Korea in 2010 and have always complained about the lengthy visa problem.
Lisa Yun, Head of Royal Caribbean's marketing team in South Korea, is excited about the proposal, “Our cruise runs from China to Busan, so the majority of our customers are Chinese, but visas for entering Korea causes a lot of woes, as the application is a time-consuming and complicated process".
"It will be a huge help for us to expand in the Chinese market."
