South Korean lawmaker Cho Gye-won’s office is considering summoning Hong Jong-min, head of Trip.com’s Korean branch, again after he missed a parliamentary audit on overseas travel platforms and consumer harm.

In a written explanation, Hong said he was on a business trip to Singapore that had been arranged in August, before lawmakers selected him as a witness.

Trip.com, part of Shanghai-headquartered Trip.com Group, is an online travel agency. It had 6.49 million monthly active users in South Korea in August, up 175% year on year, according to Wise App & Retail.

The Korea Consumer Agency recorded 305 accommodation-related damage claims involving Trip.com from 2021 through August this year. Among them, 54 involved contract breaches.

In June, the Korea Fair Trade Commission ordered corrective measures and imposed a 10 million won (US$7,437) penalty on Trip.com Singapore and Trip.com Korea.

The case involved issuing vouchers instead of refunds for some canceled airline tickets and operating without the required mail-order business registration.

The vouchers totaled 3.2 billion won (US$2.38 million) over five years from 2020.

🔗 Source: Chosun Daily

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