Can’t Leave Home Without It

South Korea represents a potentially lucrative and growing tourism market for Los Angeles and the nation, but a backlog in processing visas at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul is creating travel headaches, local tourism officials say.

“We haven’t seen a drop in tourists from Korea, but we had been enjoying double-digit growth out of Korea, and that didn’t happen last year,” said George Kirkland, president of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau.

To be sure, international tourism is booming in Los Angeles and nationwide, and tourism from South Korea is growing too.

In 1996, 226,000 South Koreans visited Los Angeles, up only 2.7% from the year before. South Koreans visiting Los Angeles stay 10.6 days on average and spend an average of $44 per day (a relatively low amount because many South Koreans stay with friends and relatives), according to visitors bureau statistics.

Nationwide, the number of visiting South Koreans jumped 34% last year. Increases had been in the 20% range before that, although officials believe that 34% would have been even higher without visa problems.

The problem is that high demand for visas created a bottleneck a few years ago. Though improving, visa approvals continue to be slow for South Koreans wishing to travel to the United States, Kirkland said.

Some local hotels and tour operators report that visa frustrations have cost them business.

Sharp Tours, a large tour wholesaler in Korea, points to one recent example: A group traveling from South Korea to a July health food distributor convention in Los Angeles was supposed to number 600. Because of problems securing visas, only 250 conventioneers showed up, said Joshua Ho, marketing director in the Los Angeles office of Sharp Tours.

An August tour group to Hawaii started out at 250 but shrank to 30 at the last minute, he said.

“Our hotel no-show charge was $3,000 for that group,” Ho said. “The visa situation is getting better compared to last year and the year before, but it’s still bad.”

Tourism officials have been lobbying to get South Korea on a list of countries whose citizens can travel to the United States without visas, but Kirkland said he holds out little hope that South Korea will be approved for visa-waiver status because of a visa-turndown rate that exceeds the standards set for that program.

Officials also are pushing for more staff at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul or for more distribution points within South Korea, he said.

Nancy Rivera Brooks can be reached via e-mail at nancy.rivera.brooks

@latimes.com or by fax at (213) 237-7837.