Tourist Allegedly Absconds During South Korea Trip, Travel Agency Speaks Out
A tour participant from Madiun, Femas (22), has reportedly absconded from his group during a trip to South Korea.
The incident went viral on social media after being posted by the Threads account @sarjanabackpacker on Thursday (16/7). As a result of the incident, the travel agency said it had been fined up to Rp125 million.
“We are angry because the decision of one person can make hundreds of future participants become victims. Our travel agency was fined Rp125 million,” the account’s post read.
The incident began when Femas said he wanted to look at shoes in the Myeongdong area and left the hotel. However, he never returned to the hotel and could not be contacted.
According to the account, believed to belong to the travel organiser, Femas had deliberately planned his departure. The travel agency searched for him at several locations but he was not found.
“The tour leader searched. Called repeatedly. Combed his last known location. Reported to the authorities in Korea. But… nothing came of it,” the post said.
As a result, after the tour ended, the travel agency decided to visit Femas’s home in Bantengan village, Wungu district, Madiun, East Java. There, they met Femas’s mother.
However, from the very first questions, his mother claimed to know nothing. According to @sarjanabackpacker, Femas’s mother seemed to turn a blind eye and showed no concern for her missing son, as any parent would.
“We found more and more irregularities. The statements kept changing. At first she claimed to know nothing. Then she admitted to knowing part of it. Then new information emerged that had never been mentioned before,” the account said, as quoted by detikJatim.
The travel agency also found it strange that the mother’s chat history with her son had been deleted on WhatsApp, even though that history would be important if she genuinely wanted to find her missing son.
When asked why the message history had been deleted, the mother said she had acted out of emotion. On the mother’s phone, the travel agency also found the Papago app, a Korean language translation application.
“On the phone we also saw the Papago app, a translation app commonly used for Korean,” the @sarjanabackpacker account wrote in its thread.
In the thread, @sarjanabackpacker clarified that the Rp125 million fine was not imposed by the South Korean government, but by the visa operator.
The fine, it explained, is part of the agreement if any tour member fails to return with the group.
“There is a penalty clause for us as the travel agent. Why? Because the visa operator also bears the risk. If there are too many cases like this, they could lose trust, and even their access to process visas could be affected,” the account said.
The travel agency believes the suspected absconding by Femas could tarnish the reputation of travel agents, because trust is more valuable than mere business.
They stressed that they never support anyone entering another country, or South Korea, through unofficial channels or with different permits.
“Cases like this will keep happening. And it is not just one travel agency that loses out. What loses out is the good name of Indonesian tourists in the eyes of other countries. That is what we are fighting for, not just for ourselves,” the account said.