South Korean major travel agency "Hana Tour" announced on August 2 that the number of Japan travel products sold in August was about 80% lower than the same month last year. The sales ranking also dropped from 1st place to Southeast Asia and China and dropped to 3rd place. This seems to be partly due to the difficulty of posting photos of travel to Japan on the SNS “Instagram” as a result of worsening relations between Japan and Korea.
According to Hana Tour, the number of products sold in Japan in August decreased by 76.9% compared to the same month last year. The company analyzes and analyzes the impact of “Japan Boycott”, which is against Japan's export restrictions to Korea, which Japan has been enacting since July. The number of Korean tourists visiting Japan has also been declining, according to a survey by the Japan National Tourism Organization.
In the background, there is an atmosphere in Korea where young people aiming for “Instagram” must avoid posting photos of their trip to Japan. When Korean media looked at the number of posts to Instagram with the keyword “travel to Japan”, the number of posts in July was less than half of April. There have also been cases where popular actors have posted photos of their trips to Japan on Instagram and have been criticized.
A Seoul woman (29) who traveled to Tokyo in August without telling her parents to oppose, “I took a lot of photos that look like Instagram, such as sushi and pancakes, but I ca n’t post them. Many people don't go around now. " (Seoul = Takuya Suzuki)