Myeong-dong crowded with groups of tourists

Foreign tourists pass by shops in Myeong-dong, a popular shopping district in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, Sunday, five days after the government declared a de facto end of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) crisis.

The declaration came after no new case of MERS infection was reported for more than three weeks.

The MERS scare had dealt a serious blow to the country's tourism industry since the government confirmed the first outbreak of the viral respiratory disease on May 20.

Foreign tourist arrivals, mostly Chinese, in the nation plunged 41 percent in June from a year earlier in the wake of the MRES outbreak, according to data compiled by the state-run Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). It marked the first on-year decline in 25 months.

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com

Myeong-dong crowded with groups of tourists

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