Some 2,000 employees from a dining franchise company in Taiwan will visit Seoul on incentive overseas tours, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday.

Groups of up to 90 employees on 21 separate occasions will tour Seoul for five days from late August to November, the city government said.

Their visits were arranged by the city government as part of its effort to attract more tourists amid a continued tourism boycott by China in retaliation against Seoul’s decision to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system here. 

The number of tourists to Korea in May -- a peak tourism month for the Chinese with a weeklong holiday marking Labor Day -- fell 27 percent on-year to 1.08 million tourists compared to last year, with a 60 percent drop in Chinese visitors. 

To ease the impact of China’s boycott, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a tourism program to provide benefits to tourists coming as a group, mainly targeting those from Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries. 

In a joint effort with the Korea Tourism Organization, the city government opened a tourism promotion booth in Taipei last week to attract visitors. It was the third of its kind, following promotion booths in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, earlier this year. 

According to the Seoul City’s tourism policy division, those who travel as a group and stay in Seoul for over two nights with an accumulated 100 nights of stay as a group can receive 20,000 won ($18) to 30,000 won of sightseeing subsidy per person. Travelers can also participate in one of five sightseeing programs hosted by the city government, which include visiting Seoullo 7017 and Bukchon Hanok Village.

As a result, the city government said at least 350,000 visitors from Taiwan visited Seoul during the first half of this year, an about 28 percent jump compared to last year. Those from Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries went up by 53.3 percent over the same period. 

“The city government will continue to come up with creative programs and promote the benefits of trips to Seoul, especially in the MICE tourism sector, for groups who are brought for a particular purpose like meetings, incentives, conference and exhibitions,” said Kim Jae-yong, head of the Seoul City’s tourism policy division. 

In recent years, Southeast Asian firms and institutions have been sending thousands of employees and students to Seoul on trips, on the back of the growing popularity of South Korean TV shows and K-pop.

In April, employees of insurance firm AXA from Indonesia came for a weeklong tour and participated in a bike-riding program near the Han River, followed by a group of students from an Indonesian university who visited in July. The staff of an underwear manufacturer from Vietnam also visited Seoullo 7017 in the same month through Seoul’s sponsorship. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)