As the number of foreign visitors to South Korea rapidly increases, a Taiwanese tourist who traveled by taxi from Seoul to Incheon International Airport ended up paying an amount roughly 10 times the normal fare.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization on the 2nd, the number of foreign visitors to South Korea in April totaled 2,027,860, up 18.8% from the same month a year earlier. By country, Chinese visitors were the most numerous at 574,283, followed by Japanese at 304,053, Taiwanese at 192,854, and Americans at 173,457.
As foreign tourists have increased, complaints about unfair taxi fares have also risen. The number of tourist inconvenience reports in the Seoul area last year rose 66.6% from the previous year to 898, accounting for 56.3% of all reports. By type, shopping was the most common at 398 cases, followed by taxis at 309 cases.
The taxi QR inconvenience reporting system separately operated by the Seoul city government also received 487 reports from foreigners between June and December last year, with 167 concentrated in December alone, accounting for 34.3% of the total.
Amid this, a Taiwanese tourist identified as A said on social media (SNS) that on the 30th of last month, after taking an Uber taxi from Jayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, to Incheon International Airport Terminal 2, he paid 690,800 won, including 66,000 won in tolls. A said he had initially registered Seoul Station as his destination, then changed it to Incheon Airport during the trip, and that the additional fare was supposed to be automatically charged to the card registered in the app.
However, he said that upon arriving at the airport, the driver demanded a separate payment using the card terminal inside the vehicle, and pressed for time before his flight, he had no choice but to pay. Considering that the ordinary taxi fare for that route is around 70,000 won including tolls, the amount was nearly 10 times higher. He wrote, "For this kind of amount, isn't it like going from South Korea to North Korea?"
A reported the incident to Uber's customer center, but the refund was delayed on the grounds that it was not a platform payment. Uber later said the driver had expressed intent to refund the on-site payment amount. The driver reportedly explained that he had entered one extra "0" during the payment process.
A, who has returned to Taiwan, said he has completed all necessary reports and is awaiting the refund procedures from the card company and Uber.
This is not the first case of taxi price gouging targeting foreigners. In Busan, a Taiwanese tourist used a taxi-hailing app to travel about 15 minutes from a hotel in Haeundae-gu to Gwangalli Beach, and a complaint was filed after it was revealed that the driver arbitrarily entered 80,000 won on the meter for payment.
In Seoul as well, there were cases such as a taxi driver in Myeong-dong who departed without using the meter and then demanded 20,000 won more than the map app fare at the destination, and a case in which an unfair out-of-jurisdiction surcharge was applied on a trip from Hongdae to Incheon Airport. In December last year, a taxi driver who drove from Gimpo Airport to Yeonhui-dong arbitrarily collected 56,000 won instead of the metered fare of 32,600 won and was caught and fined.
As such cases repeat, some point out that they are eroding foreign visitors' travel satisfaction. According to an analysis of global community posts over the past three years by the travel and tourism research institute Yanolja Research, the proportion of respondents who said they experienced inconvenience during travel in South Korea was 11%, higher than in Japan (7%).
