According to the Hotel Price Index released by the hotel booking site Hotels.com, average hotel room prices for global travelers to Korea fell by 21 percent on-year in 2013. The average room price foreign tourists paid was 150,295 won ($139). The price drop resulted from the decrease in Japanese visitors due to the depreciation of the yen. Meanwhile, the average price of a hotel room for global travelers rose by 3 percent in 2013 from the previous year. The report said the fall in room rates made travel destinations more attractive economically. Seoul is the sixth-most popular tourist destination for mainland Chinese travelers, fourth for tourists from Hong Kong and still the second most popular city among Japanese.

(wylee@heraldcorp.com)