Korea Travel Conference Aims
to Revitalize Regional Tourism

Local governments to lay foundation to explore new tourism destinations

Chungcheongbuk-do, the venue of the Korea Travel Conference 2008, will offer diverse programs designed to improve the region's tourism conditions and explore ways of developing the local tourism industry, said Rhee Jae-sung, executive director of the Convention Bureau at the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO).
Rhee said in an interview with NewsWorld, "The Korea Travel Conference 2008 will be a significant opportunity for promoting the full-blown networking of those in tourism-related industries, cooperation on pending issues facing the domestic tourism industry and the exploration of development alternatives."The following are excerpts of his interview.
Question: What's your assessment of the Korea Travel Conference marking its fourth year?
Answer: The Korea Travel Conference, which evolved from the PATA Korea Chapter Congress in 2005, marks its fourth year in 2008. As time passes, the annual conference has been establishing itself as one of the nation's largest extravaganza events in which tourism industry-related people from Korea and abroad, including those from tour and travel agencies, local governments and academic circles, participate.
In particular, it is significant for each local government that hosts the annual travel conference to lay the foundation to explore new tourism destinations. The Incheon Metropolitan Government, which sponsored the Korea Travel Conference 2007, is assessed to have gained momentum in publicizing Incheon's tourism industry and has established its image by offering tourism programs during the conference, let alone the economic spillover effects estimated at 9.6 billion won.
Q: Gyeongsangnam-do and Chungcheongbuk-do competed to win the right to host the Korea Travel Conference 2008, but Chungcheongbuk-do won. The competition means something different from the annual convention. What do you focus on when organizing the annual travel conference?
A: Chungcheongbuk-do, the venue of the Korea Travel Conference 2008, will offer diverse programs designed to improve the region's tourism conditions and explore ways of developing the local tourism industry. The provincial government has an ambitious plan to make the year 2008 the starting point of a drive to help the province's tourism industry take a leap forward, as it will play host to the Korea-Japan-China tourism ministers'meeting slated for June 22-25. The Chungcheongbuk-do provincial government, the co-organizer of this year's annual travel conference, will provide the participants of the conference with an opportunity to take half-day trips to such tourism attractions as Sangsu Herb Land, the presidential resort Cheongnamdae and Chungju Lake for ferry cruises, while running its tourism publication pavilion and organizing diverse side-events.
Additionally, select local governments will be invited to present their tourism policies so that local government officials can share policy ideas.
Leading travel operators from such countries as the United States, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates will be provided with an opportunity to hold one-on-one consultations with their Korean counterparts and a job fair to help college students land jobs in the tourism industry will be held in order to diversify programs for conference participants.
Q: Can you give us a rundown of this year's travel conference?
A: PATA CEO & President Peter de Jong will deliver a keynote speech titled "Climate Change and Tourism"while the UN WTO Special Session will discuss destination branding strategies. The Convention Seminar and the Convention Academy will present lectures and discussions on the development direction of Korea's professional convention organizer (PCO) industry, new growth mechanisms of the convention industry and Singapore's tourism business cooperation mechanism and practices, respectively. The presentation session for local government's excellent policies will present Mokpo's 'got'(a traditional cylindrical Korean hat) -shaped rock culture street, the Andong International Mask Dance Festival and the Boryeong Mud Festival. Sessions I to IV will be about "The Online Tourism Market: Today and Tomorrow," "Chungcheongbuk-do: Strategies for an International Tourism Destination," "The Cruise Industry, New Opportunities in Korea's Travel Market"and "Tourism Policy Questions and Strategies."On hand at the annual travel conference will be about 40 theme speakers and panelists, including a keynote speaker.
About 100 business consultation meetings are scheduled to ensure efficient consultations between about 20 Korean firms and 14 foreign buyers.
Eighteen institutions, including the KTO, travel agencies, hotels, convention centers, convention bureaus and PCOs, have already signed up for their participation in a job fair exploring careers for college students. Ten more firms are expected to follow suit. On-line and off-line publicity channels are available to help tourism-related majors and students wanting to get jobs in the tourism industry.
The venue of the annual travel conference and hotel accommodations were made ready in cooperation with the Chungcheongbuk-do provincial government and pre-tour preparations were made without a hitch. Steps to cope with the transportation of participants are well in progress.
Q: What do you want to tell conference participants?
A: I believe that the Korea Travel Conference 2008 will be a significant opportunity for promoting the full-blown networking of those in all tourism-related industries, cooperation on pending issues facing the domestic tourism industry and the exploration of development alternatives. The annual travel conference will offer forward-looking programs ranging from sessions for tourism policies, including "Climate Change and Tourism"in the keynote speech, on-line tours, cruise tours, conventions, revitalization of regional tourism and tourism branding strategies, business consultations between invited foreign travel operators and domestic firms and a job fair for prospective tourism businesspeople. I hope that you will find the solutions to the future of Korea's tourism industry through the diverse themes of the conference and active networking.
Q: Do you have any strategies and options in mind to further develop the annual travel conference in the future?
A: I wish that future travel conferences will be places to not only expand the current concept of promoting inbound, outbound and intra-bound travel through the know-how and networking it has so far accumulated, but also to establish a bridgehead for the tourism industry by taking the lead in such areas as the cultivation of prospective tourism businesspeople.
Close collaboration is essential to make the annual travel conference a success. Gyeongsangnam-do, the venue of the Korea Travel Conference slated for 2009, has already announced a plan to capitalize on the forthcoming conference to make the Gyeongnam Goseong Dinosaur World Expo a success and develop the province into a tourism hub of Northeast Asia. The KTO is pulling out all the stops to help the annual travel conference contribute to revitalizing the tourism industry of each region that hosts it. nw

Rhee Jae-sung, executive director of the Convention Bureau at the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO)