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Hana Tour, the nation's largest travel agency, is taking flak for inadequate alternatives for package tourists who failed to proceed on schedule due to inclement weather.
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Despite their return to Vancouver, they were unable to contact the Hana Tour guide they were supposed to meet at Yellowknife, or the travel agency back home, forcing them to spend the night at the airport.
After many inconveniences, the tourists finally met the tour guide in Vancouver, but they were surprised to hear the agency's new alternative plan.
"Hana Tour told us to take a self-guided tour with our own money instead of going to Yellowknife," a tourist surnamed Choi was quoted as saying by SBS.
"It did not make sense at all because we went there on a package program and we already paid for traveling expenses."
The angered travelers rejected the offer and Hana Tour pulled out of the tour, saying that it was out of the question to continue the package program.
"As a result, we spent our own money to continue the tour."
After returning home, they complained to the travel agency, but the firm rejected the complaints, saying the tour schedule was changed because of "natural disaster" and it proposed an optimal alternative.
"Initially, a self-guided tour program was arranged in Yellowknife along with going to see the aurora borealis in a group," a Hana official told The Korea Times.
According to him, the travel agency suggested the travelers tour Vancouver by themselves and it would pay 50 percent of their costs.
Despite the travel company's explanation, the public criticized Hana, calling for boycotting its tour programs.
