Busan hotels and motels sharply raised room rates ahead of BTS concerts scheduled for June 12 and 13, prompting checks by national regulators and joint inspections by the city to probe possible unlawful price gouging.
Officials said average concert-week room rates were more than doubled compared with the weekends before and after the event. Motel rates more than tripled from normal levels and hotel rates nearly tripled. Some properties set prices more than five times higher: rooms that ordinarily cost 60,000 won a night reportedly spiked to 760,000 won; some 100,000 won rooms jumped to 750,000 won; and some 300,000 won rooms reached 1.8 million won.
The Fair Trade Commission and the Korea Consumer Agency checked 135 Busan hotels and motels in the run-up to the June shows. The city also launched joint inspections to look for possible violations of the Public Health Control Act and warned businesses against excessive hikes, saying it would carry out targeted inspections of accommodations that draw visitor complaints.
The pricing surge came as BTS prepares to hold concerts in Busan on June 12 and 13 as part of its ARIRANG world tour; the June 13 date overlaps with the group's debut anniversary. The Busan Metropolitan Government is preparing related events around the concerts, and the timing appears to have concentrated demand for rooms in the city.
Fans reported that some accommodations canceled existing reservations after the concert announcement and then offered the rooms again at higher prices. "I made a reservation months ago, but they canceled it citing overbooking or remodeling, and then sold it again at a higher price," one fan said.
The scale of the spikes — averages more than doubled and individual categories more than tripled — drew particular scrutiny because the increases were not limited to a handful of listings. Regulators emphasized the comparison that led to the national checks: concert-week rates compared with the weekends immediately before and after the event.
That comparison underpins the city’s inspections, which are explicitly looking at whether businesses broke the Public Health Control Act or other rules in the way they handled bookings and pricing. City officials have warned operators that excessive hikes and last-minute cancellations could trigger targeted enforcement.
The immediate next step is the inspections themselves: authorities have already completed checks of 135 properties, and the city has said it will focus targeted inspections on accommodations drawing complaints. The single most consequential unanswered question is whether those inspections will find violations under the Public Health Control Act and, if so, what penalties will follow.
