Korea-Japan Meet on Tourist Exchange

Bilateral cabinet ministerial meeting on culture and tourism exchanges agree to further boost youth exchange program

Minister Yu In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism visited Tokyo March 5-7 to attend a Korea-Japan culture and tourism meeting, which was designed to set up a futuristic, mature companionship between the two neighboring countries, the ministry said recently.
Minister Yu became the first culture and tourism minister to visit Japan since the Lee Myung-bak government came to power a year ago and Yu's move is related to the agreement reached at the Korea-Japan summit on Jan. 12 in Seoul in the areas of culture, arts and tourism, the ministry said.
During the visit, Yu held the Korea-Japan tourism conference with his Japanese counterpart Kaneko Kazuyoshi and the two ministers issued a joint statement on the expansion of tourism between Korea and Japan and participated in the Night for Korea-Japan Tourism Exchange held both in Tokyo and Osaka.
Yu also held a media conference to further promote friendship and tourism exchange as part of the cultural exchange between the two countries, which has been solidified since the 2005 Korea-Japan Summit.
The recent bilateral tourism meeting focused on joint events to continue to expand tourism exchange following the results of the tourism exchanges in 2008, which included the expansion of youth exchanges and the exchange of information related with tourism and support for such activities. The two ministers signed a joint statement, which included the following points:
First: The two countries will expand tourism exchange through cultural and sports events, especially among local provinces of the two countries.
Second: They will invigorate the exchange of youth, which will be a huge source for tourism growth in the future.
Third: The two countries will cooperate in the training of manpower who will work internationally in the future.
Fourth: The two countries will promote diversified joint events to further spur bilateral exchange in 2009 by exchanging information related to tourism in both countries and activities to support the exchange.
The Night of Korea-Japan Tourism Exchange is an event designed to expand the human exchange between the two countries in a sustainable and stable way since the Declaration of Friendship and the Korea-Japan Mutual Year 2005.
The event is expected to strengthen the loyalty for Korea in the tourism industry of Japan and, thus, help expand the number of Japanese tourists to Korea, along with other events including the Korea-Japan joint statement at the end of the conference on the expansion of the tourism exchange. Also taking place at the event was the presentation of citations and awards to those who contributed to the tourism exchange and friendship between Korea and Japan.
The festive event is also expected to promote the business relations between Korea and Japan as many professionals in such diverse areas as travel, airlines, hostelry and medical tourism, among others, in both countries, participated in the event.
In the meantime, with the arrival of Japanese tourists in Korea rising sharply in recent months due to the high appreciation of the Japanese yen, Korean businesses have also decided to take advantage by conducting "target marketing" of their products in Japan in the hope that Japanese tourists would buy their products and take them home. Japanese travelers in Korea in the first two months of the year so far were up 60 percent to 319,200 and are likely to continue to grow in coming months.
This has been the case for the cosmetic shops and department stores with luxury products, along with such traditional Korean foods as hot pastes, kimchi and other foods made with hot peppers. Some businesses are selling products specifically targeted at Japanese customers such as "Louis 14th," selling Kate Space New York, an American fashion brand, in an unusual move as it targets Japanese tourists, not domestic customers.
The brand gained fame as it was shown in such popular films as "The Devil Wear Prada," and "Sex and the City." Taejin International, which handles the shops, said the U.S. fashion brand will be priced some 20 to 30 percent lower than the usual price charged in the United States and some 50 percent lower in Korea. The company opened its first shop in the Lotte Department Store in downtown Seoul.
"Etude House" is another one of those shops handling exotic products aimed at Japanese tourists in Korea. The shop invited "Itko" a famous Japanese make-up artist as its model to help sell cosmetics products to Japanese tourists, especially, women. A manager of the cosmetics product shop said its No.1 shop in Myeong-dong, central Seoul, sold over 1 billion won worth of its product line, mostly to Japanese women tourists in January. nw

Minister Yu In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Minister Yu, left, and Minister Kaneko Kazuyoshi of the Ministry of Land and Transportation of Japan, hold the copies of the joint statement from the Korea-Japan Tourism Exchange Meeting held in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, March 5-7.