SEOUL, May 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Major hotels in South Korea are turning to a variety of rather unusual marketing strategies to attract customers amid the pandemic. The Millennium Hilton Seoul is offering a 50 percent discount on its lunch buffet for recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine and their companions on weekdays until June 30. [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Demand for high-end home appliances is rising with Koreans continue to opt to stay indoors away from the coronavirus. South Korean online shopping site Auction sold 630 percent more four-door refrigerators and 165 percent more 86-inch televisions between May 1 and 16 compared to the same period last year. [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Fitness centers are dealing with significant losses after seeing their operations restricted by the central government as part of coronavirus containment measures. SG Lab, a research arm of the South Korean real estate marketing firm, reported that according to statistics provided by the Ministry of Interior and Safety, 214 [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s six major travel agencies cut some 15 percent of their workforce over the past year as travel demand has taken a massive hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Wednesday. At the end of March, six listed travel firms had a total of 4,268 employees, down 15.4 [...]
SEOUL, May 17 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of visitors to major amusement and theme parks across the country decreased sharply last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Monday. According to data from the state-run Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, attendance at Lotte World in southern Seoul stood at 1.56 million in 2020, [...]
SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean movie theaters on Wednesday called on the government to come up with more practical financial measures to rescue the sector that has been in the doldrums for more than a year amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s cinema chain association, whose members include three major multiplexes [...]
SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) — As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on, the number of both domestic and international child adoptions last year in Korea reached an all-time low. The Ministry of Health and Welfare reported that last year there were 260 domestic adoptions and 232 foreign adoptions, as approved by the court. [...]
SEOUL, May 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Music competitions for classical musicians are moving online as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on. This year’s Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, which ended on May 3, assessed pre-recorded videos of each performance online for the first and second rounds. Only the six finalists performed offline with [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean’s happiness levels hit a new low last August, during the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak, the latest survey showed. Last year, the Center for Happiness Studies at Seoul National University, in collaboration with Kakao Corp.’s charity foundation, conducted a survey of 1.4 million South Koreans over [...]
SEOUL, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of people subscribing to state employment insurance rose in April by the highest figure since before the pandemic, the labor ministry said Monday. According to the ministry, nearly 14.2 million people had employment insurance last month, up 422,000, or 3.1 percent, from April 2020. The increase was [...]