A staff member wearing a protective mask serves dishes at a restaurant in Gwangju, 330 kilometers south of Seoul, in this file photo taken on July 21, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to South Korea’s restaurant industry last year. Particularly, entertainment bars and barbecue restaurants were hit the hardest.
According to a recent report from the Korea Food Service Industry Association, the value of credit card payments reported by Shinhan Card Co. at restaurants during the first nine months of last year totaled 71.8 trillion won (US$66 billion), down 10 percent from 79.7 trillion won a year ago.
By restaurant type, foreign food restaurants and general entertainment bars suffered the biggest declines at 37.1 percent each.
Among Korean food restaurants, seafood restaurants and barbecue restaurants marked the biggest declines at 19.3 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.
In contrast, the value of card payments in the area of food delivery services jumped by 75.4 percent from 2.6 trillion won to 4.6 trillion won during the same period.
In the meantime, non-face-to-face services such as delivery and kiosks are expanding in the restaurant industry on the back of the spread of the coronavirus.
According to a report from the Industrial Skills Council, 44.6 percent or 135 restaurants among 303 restaurants surveyed turned out to have introduced non-face-to-face services.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
