Rooms for $2,000 a night, scalpers on the street: BTS fans leave Busan with bitter memories

110,000 ARMY descend on Busan — only to face price gouging

Soaring hotel rates leave international fans scrambling

After the show, fans flee to Seoul, jjimjilbang or the beach

BTS fans pose at the "BTS World Tour Arirang in Busan" concert. [Yonhap]

"Hotel prices shot up so much that staying in Busan was simply out of the question. It was tiring, but a day trip was the only option."

On the night of June 13, after the curtain fell on "BTS World Tour Arirang in Busan" — the finale of the group's homecoming days — fans were already on the move. Each show drew 55,000 people, and the crowds spilled well beyond the main stadium, filling the surrounding streets with fans who could not get inside and local residents who had come to watch. But for many ARMY members with nowhere to stay, the rush to leave Busan had already begun.

Briana, 27, from the United States, was on an SRT train bound for Suseo that night. "I've been to Korea several times, but hotel prices in Busan had gone up so much that coming back to Seoul just made more sense," she said.

BTS's 13th anniversary celebration — the first with the full group reunited — ended in triumph, but Busan, a city that markets itself as a tourism destination, was left with a familiar problem. The same surge in accommodation prices and unilateral booking cancellations that drew outrage in 2022 had returned.

Busan accommodation prices soar — fans head to Seoul, jjimjilbang or sleep on the beach

Tourism complaints in May: half of the national total came from Busan alone

Grievances poured in from fans well before the concert. The most serious involved price gouging by accommodation providers — inflated rates were the norm, and a wave of booking cancellations added to the anger.

Data compiled by the Korea Tourism Organization's Korea Tourism Data Lab showed that of 368 tourism complaints filed nationwide in May — a month before the concert — 185, or 50.3 percent, came from Busan alone. That figure approached 77.4 percent of all tourism complaints recorded in Busan for all of last year.

The vast majority of complaints involved accommodation. General lodging drew 133 complaints, followed by hotels at 21. A joint investigation by the Korea Fair Trade Commission and the Korea Consumer Agency found that weekend room rates at properties within 5 kilometers of the concert venue had risen an average of 2.4 times above normal, with some reaching 7.5 times the usual price. Motels and business hotels that ordinarily charge around 100,000 won ($65) were listing rooms at 700,000 to 1.5 million won. Some upscale hotels posted asking prices of 3 million to 9 million won per night. Providers exploited a legal loophole: under current law, accommodation operators are free to set their own rates.

BTS fans queue outside a merchandise shop set up at Sajik Indoor Gymnasium near Asiad Main Stadium in Dongnae-gu, Busan, on June 12 ahead of the "BTS World Tour Arirang in Busan" concert. Some fans rest in the shade nearby. [Yonhap]

Beyond the price surge, existing reservations were being canceled outright — and the hardest hit were foreign tourists unfamiliar with Korea's booking systems or the language. About 83 percent of those who filed complaints were foreign nationals; by late May, the total had reached 311 cases.

One accommodation in Haeundae-gu demanded an additional 500,000 won from a guest who had booked two nights during the BTS concert period, claiming the original reservation had been made at below-market rates. Another property canceled a confirmed booking made two months in advance and resold the room.

Fans who spoke to reporters in Busan said they had little choice but to pay the inflated prices. One Japanese ARMY member said she had visited Busan four years ago and traveled to Korea often because of its proximity to Japan, but had never seen prices this high. "I booked a non-hotel place for around 500,000 won, but the room wasn't worth what I paid — it was pretty disappointing," she said.

Faced with surging accommodation costs, many fans chose to stay in Seoul or other cities and travel to Busan for the day, while others planned to use jjimjilbang or sleep on Gwangalli Beach. Among fans who made the trip, lists of jjimjilbang and 24-hour cafes circulated widely.

Jinine, who came from Taiwan, said she had traveled from Seoul to Busan to coincide with the BTS Festa period but had been unable to book a hotel. "I'm thinking of either staying at a jjimjilbang or booking a taxi back to Seoul," she said.

The "BTS THE CITY Arirang Busan Welcome Center" set up at Busan Station's Eurasia Platform. [Yonhap]

A nightmare revisited: price gouging and scalpers strike again

The controversy surrounding the BTS concert was a near-exact replay of events from four years ago. The "2030 Busan World Expo Bid Support Concert" held in October 2022 triggered nationwide anger over the same predatory pricing and forced cancellations by accommodation providers. Despite nearly three years and eight months to reflect and prepare, Busan city authorities allowed the same abuses to recur at another major event — an implicit admission that the city had learned nothing.

The city did put forward some measures. Through a "public accommodation project" that mobilized spare facilities at religious organizations, universities and public institutions, it opened alternative lodging for 1,771 people, mostly foreign fans, and promoted a "fair accommodation challenge" involving 91 participating businesses. But these steps came only after thousands of cancellations had already occurred and price gouging was well underway — widely criticized as too little, too late. Local government guidance carries no legal force over private operators, and experts say it was never going to stop the surge in unregistered short-term rentals and irregular establishments operating in a regulatory blind spot.

On top of the accommodation crisis, fans also had to contend with ticket scalpers. Police arrested 11 people, including a group of Korean nationals caught illegally reselling 220,000-won admission wristbands to foreign fans for 680,000 won each. The maximum fine for ticket scalping stands at just 160,000 won — a penalty widely seen as too low to deter the practice.

Chen Jialin, a Chinese ARMY member who spoke to reporters in Busan, said she had enjoyed her time at the concert but found the city difficult to navigate as a tourist. "I paid the high prices and made the best of it, but I'm not sure I'll come back to Busan," she said.

The concert also left the K-pop industry with questions to answer. Experts warned against focusing solely on the economic spillover that comes with booking major artists.

An industry insider said the problems of price gouging and scalping were not unique to BTS and could repeat themselves at concerts and large-scale events involving other K-pop acts. "The principle behind flexible pricing deserves respect, but there needs to be a legal basis for introducing price caps at least during specific events or international-scale concerts," the person said.

shee@heraldcorp.com