South Korea is planning to go all out to bring tourists back into the country as part of its attempt to revive its domestic economy post virus outbreak. According to Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) executive vice president for international tourism Rhee Jaesung, it expects to see the number of tourists pick up in the coming months, following the government'€™s announcement that the country was now virtually free of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus.

'€œWe suffered quite a lot from declining tourist number in the period of June and July due to MERS, but are slowly recovering,'€ he said on Wednesday.

Rhee said that the KTO was currently coordinating with other agencies to win back the hearts of foreign tourists as tourism currently accounted for 6 to 7 percent of the country'€™s gross domestic product.

'€œWe'€™re sending people overseas to promote our tourism and working with pop artists, part of our Korean wave, to shed light on the latest situation. We are also ready to launch our Korea grand sale in August to attract visitors,'€ he said.

The Korea Herald reported that major retailers had begun holding massive events to jack up sales as department stores and discount outlet chains slashed the prices of luxury and fashion items.

Some duty-free stores are even offering free gifts to win back foreign tourists, according to the Herald.

South Korea saw an outbreak of MERS '€” a viral respiratory infection caused by the MERS-coronavirus (MERS CoV) '€” in May this year. The disease claimed 36 lives and resulted in 186 laboratory-confirmed cases, as shown by data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Several countries, including Indonesia, issued travel advisories against traveling the South Korea after the outbreak was officially declared.

Korean tourism suffered its worst blow in June when the number of foreign tourists fell 41 percent year-on-year (yoy) to just 750,925 people, according to KTO statistics.

Taiwan and Hong Kong reported the steepest decline in tourism as their visitors were down 75.7 percent and 74.6 percent yoy, respectively. The number of Indonesians visiting Korea decreased as well with only 14,881 Indonesians going there in June, 31.6 percent lower yoy.

Bank of Korea governor Lee Ju-yeol was even quoted by the Herald as saying that tourism revenue had dropped US$630 million during the outbreak.

 However, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn announced on Tuesday that the country had not had a new MERS case in more than three weeks and that citizens could return to their daily routines.

'€œIt is the view of medical experts and the government that people can now feel safe,'€ Hwang said, as reported by various media.

Meanwhile, National Medical Center (NMC) president and CEO Ahn Myoung-ock said in a discussion that the NMC was partnering with other research institutions in South Korea to develop a MERS antibody. She added, however, that no timeframe had been set as such process could take years to complete.

'€œIn the meantime, we are working to translate a 400-page manual on MERS treatment that we composed based on our experience,'€ she said.

The NMC became one of 50 hospitals that the government designated to treat MERS. It treated 40 patients, with 30 confirmed cases and 10 suspected cases.

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