``If Slot Machine and Steam Bath Were Not Allowed, Tourist Hotels Is to Refuse World Cup Foreigners` Lodging``

The nationwide tourist hotel business circle`s decision to cancel the room reservation made for the 2002 World Cup teams and the FIFA officials, if the government do not approve the business of slot machine and tourist steam bath, is creating a stir.

Representatives of 40 tourist hotels in Kwangju, Chunnam and Chunbuk, which belong to the `committee of the emergency countermeasure for the overcome of the national tourist hotel crisis`, argued that the hotel business is ``suffering from serious financial difficulties since the government condemned tourist entertainment business as luxury leisure business including slot machine in 1993.`` at a meeting held in Koreana Hotel in Kwangju.

The representatives said, ``If the government do not approve the business of slot machine and tourist steam bath, we will cancel the family room reservation made for the FIFA and will refuse the foreigners` lodging during the World Cup Game period.``

They also insisted that the government`s administration ``has lost the balance because while the government restrains the business of the tourist hotels condemning it as luxury leisure business, it approved such business in Kangwon Land under name of reviving the economy in the abandoned mine. The tourist entertainment business should be revived to activate the tourist industry and to resolve the financial difficulties of hotels.``

The representatives said that if their demand were not accepted, they would not only cancel the all the reservation made for the World Cup, but also would they launch the struggle by returning the tourist business registration and by giving up the tourist hotel business.

Representatives of 486 tourist hotels in the nation plan to hold the `World Cup Lodging Boycott` meeting in front of the Korea National Tourism Organization in Seoul on 12th, and to urge for the appeasement of the administrative regulations as well as the revision of the related laws that tighten the tourist entertainment business.

218 tourist hotels made contracts with the Britain`s Byrom company, which is the FIFA lodging agency, to offer 22,000 family rooms for the FIFA during the 2002 World Cup Game period (May 26-June 3).

shjung@donga.com