Busan's 119.5% Rise in Chinese Bookings Implies a Base Below 2% of Korea's Total

Work backwards from the 6.5%. Seoul grew 4.2% ^[5], which leaves 2.3 points of the national gain for everywhere else to supply ^[12]. Busan grew 115.3 points faster than Seoul ^[11]. Divide the one by the other and Busan lands at roughly 2% of last year's Chinese booking base ^[13]. Because Jeju at 29.0% and Incheon at 23.1% also ran ahead of the capital ^[6], the real share is smaller than that ^[17].

Now convert to room-nights. Busan added 1.195 bookings for every one it held a year earlier; Seoul added 0.042. So Seoul put more new bookings on the board in absolute terms unless its base is under 28.5 times Busan's ^[14]. AllMyTour did not publish the underlying counts, and its figures cover reservations on its own platform for stays during the two holidays ^[1].

AllMyTour is now securing more accommodation in Busan and other regions ^[9]. The demand it is contracting against is 71.1% Chinese ^[2], and the lift is attributed to a temporary visa-free entry program for Chinese group tourists that overlapped the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day ^[3].

The waiver decides which way this goes. If it lapses, Busan is back to a provincial base with newly signed rooms sitting on top of it. If it is extended, a 2% base compounding at anything near triple digits ^[4] is a different business inside three years. If the two holidays merely pulled a year of trips into one window, Busan's twelve-month number ends up nearer Seoul's 4.2% ^[5].

I would expect the percentage to fall as the base fills out. In the next comparable window, Busan holding triple-digit growth while Seoul stays near 4.2% ^[5] makes provincial inventory cheap at today's prices; Busan reverting toward the national 6.5% ^[1] leaves operators holding rooms bought on a calendar coincidence.

Outbound, the direction is less ambiguous. Mode Tour put Korean bookings to Xiamen up 42% for September through December ^[7], and its new package sells small-group departures for parties of four or more, with itineraries leaving from Busan ^[8]. Song Heon-taek, head of Mode Tour's China business division, said demand for travel to China "has recently diversified toward experiencing regional character," listing cities, culture, food and leisure, "rather than only the established scenic areas" ^[10].

A Korean operator selling four-day Fujian itineraries out of Busan is putting outbound seats and inbound rooms through the same city, and the inbound half of that trade rests on a program described as temporary ^[3].