South Korean travel agencies asked for government relief after its annual sales plummetted over 80 percent last year.
According to a task force formed to tackle the crisis, the travel agencies can no longer shoulder fixed costs because of mounting debts, even after driving employees out of their workplaces.
The task force added that the travel agencies are on "the brink of collapse" and need relief funds and compensation equivalent to those to allocated to small businesses ordered to close or cut down operations.
Among their requests is for the government to relax its 14-day self-quarantine order for those arriving from abroad.
Sales by members of the Korea Association of Travel Agents decreased 83.7 percent to 2.06 trillion won in 2020 from the previous year due to the pandemic's effect on the tourism industry.
Around 48,000 people in the travel industry have either lost their jobs or forced to take leaves of absence, according to a survey on 17,664 travel agents nationwide between September and October.


Palantir Stock Jumps After Strong Q4 Earnings Beat and Upbeat 2026 Revenue Forecast
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Acquires xAI in Historic Deal Uniting Space and Artificial Intelligence
Trump Signs Executive Order Threatening 25% Tariffs on Countries Trading With Iran
Japanese Pharmaceutical Stocks Slide as TrumpRx.gov Launch Sparks Market Concerns
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI Investment Boom Is Just Beginning as NVDA Shares Surge
Instagram Outage Disrupts Thousands of U.S. Users
Taiwan Says Moving 40% of Semiconductor Production to the U.S. Is Impossible
Alphabet’s Massive AI Spending Surge Signals Confidence in Google’s Growth Engine
TSMC Eyes 3nm Chip Production in Japan with $17 Billion Kumamoto Investment
SoftBank and Intel Partner to Develop Next-Generation Memory Chips for AI Data Centers
UK Starting Salaries See Strongest Growth in 18 Months as Hiring Sentiment Improves
SpaceX Seeks FCC Approval for Massive Solar-Powered Satellite Network to Support AI Data Centers
Nvidia, ByteDance, and the U.S.-China AI Chip Standoff Over H200 Exports
OpenAI Expands Enterprise AI Strategy With Major Hiring Push Ahead of New Business Offering
Japan Economy Poised for Q4 2025 Growth as Investment and Consumption Hold Firm
Nikkei 225 Hits Record High Above 56,000 After Japan Election Boosts Market Confidence
South Africa Eyes ECB Repo Lines as Inflation Eases and Rate Cuts Loom 



