A study shows that South Korea will suffer financial damages totaling more than 100 billion won due to the four-month-long halt of tour programs to North Korea’s Mount Geumgang resort.

A senior researcher from the Korea Institute for National Unification made the claim at a seminar on national reconciliation.

The researcher said the halt of the tour business has cost South Korean operator Hyundai Asan 70 billion won in sales over the three-month period starting mid-July. Tours to the North Korean resort have been on a hiatus since a South Korean tourist was shot to death by a North Korean soldier there on July eleventh.

The researcher claimed that Hyundai Asan’s losses will amount to 100 billion won, more than 30 percent of the company's sales last year, unless the tour programs resume before the end of the year.