A South Korean travel agency has been suspended for a month after officials found it coerced Chinese tourists into shopping, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on Wednesday.
The suspension follows a complaint filed by a Chinese tourist in February, who reported the coercive practices to a tourism inconvenience complaint center. The subsequent investigation by tourism authorities confirmed these allegations and revealed that the agency had rented out its name to an unlicensed travel agency to run duty-free shopping programs.
This incident marks the first time the South Korean government has suspended a travel agency for such practices. Regulations to penalize travel agencies for misconduct were established in 2016.
Chinese tourists comprised the largest group of inbound travelers to South Korea in the first quarter of this year, totaling 1.01 million visitors.