Boosting Tourism Image of Korea

Minister Yu expects to phase out image of Korea as an inexpensive tourist destination by upgrading quality of tourism during Visit Korea Year campaign

This is the initial year of the Visit Korea Year (VKY) 2010-2012 campaign geared to lure foreign tourists to Korea, taking advantage of a number of huge international events scheduled to take place in Korea including the G-20 Summit, the Formula One car race and the 2012 Yeosu Expo, to name a few, and the VKY Committee has set an ambitious target of attracting 10 million tourist arrivals in Korea by 2012.
Minister Yu In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is very upbeat about the prospects for the success of the campaign, phasing out the tourism image of Korea as an inexpensive tourist destination by upgrading the quality of tourism packages and products.
Among the extensive plans during the VKY campaign are making Korean foods more popular among foreign gourmets and expanding the popularity of the Korean Wave.
Following are excerpts of what Minister Yu had to say on his ministry’s plan for a successful outcome of the VKY campaign:

Question: Can you tell us the current situation on foreign tourist arrivals in Korea and how it will look in the future?
Answer: In 2009, about 7.8 million foreign tourists visited Korea and by 2012, the target year of the Visit Korea Year campaign, the number should be boosted to 10 million.
In order to make the tourist attraction campaign a great success, the Visit Korea Year Committee and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), in cooperation with local administrative entities, will streamline the tourism infrastructure to achieve a balance in tourism hardware and software across the nation so that Korea’s tourism competitiveness in the world would be boosted to the top 20 countries from the current 30 best tourism countries.
The New York Times, in a report in its Jan. 10 edition, pointed out that Korea is the third most attractive tourism country in the world, following Sri Lanka and Argentina. Our country’s image will be further expanded after staging the G-20 Summit in Seoul in November, providing us with an optimum opportunity to publicize our country to the world.
Q: Would you tell us about the tourism attraction strategies under the VKY program this year?
A: The VKY Committee will take charge of various tourism promotion programs under the VKY campaign. However, it should be conducted with the participation of the entire country, the KTO, the tourism industry and the general public as a pan-national project. A number of special programs will be prepared in addition to the existing overseas tourist promotion programs under the catchphrase of “Make Your Smile Korea’s Gift,” which is designed to improve welcome services to foreign tourists by every individual Korean.
Special attention will go to seven events including world food and tourism and the Korean Wave festivals to give foreign tourists visiting Korea added pleasure and significance to their Korean tours. Additional incentives for foreign tourists to come to Korea include such tourism packages as the Korea Grand Sale, One Night More and 3nights+1 night free, 4nights+1 night free and others.
Preparations are under way to expand interesting lodging facilities to foreign tourists including stays at Korean-style houses, Good Stay, Venecia, outdoor camping sites and other inexpensive lodging facilities around the country. There will also be signs in foreign languages in such tourist landmarks as East Gate, South Gate, Myeongdong and Insadong in Seoul, which are typically crowded by foreign visitors.
Q: The VKY campaign is taking place at the same time as the visit Japan year and the visit China year campaigns. What can you say about the situation? Can the three neighboring countries cooperate on tourism? And if so, in what ways?
A: The VKY campaign has been under preparation ever since the President Lee Myung-bak government took office on February 28, 2008. Japan launched its tourism campaign in 2003, followed by China this year with its own foreign tourist attraction campaign. Japan planned to finish the campaign this year, but has apparently extended it until 2020. Other Asian countries such as Thailand with its “Amazing Thailand” program, Malaysia with its “Truly Asia” campaign, and Singapore with its “Uniquely Singapore” program have all been engaged in their own unique foreign tourist promotion campaigns.
Those countries in Asia have taken up tourism promotion campaigns for a number of reasons including economic gains such as foreign exchange income earnings, the promotion of the exchange of people with other countries and the understanding and raising of national images, among diverse benefits both social and cultural. I hope that all three countries, Korea, Japan and China, would realize the large benefits from the exchange of tourists with each other, elevating the importance of international tourism.
I hope that the tourism campaigns will be held in a direction mutually beneficial as win-win events, not turn into win-lose events, a ruthless competition over tourists. Foreign ministers of these three countries agreed to standardize the tourism guide signs through mutual cooperation, especially from this year, as it is 1,300 years since the relocation of the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo in Japan and it is also the year of the Shanghai Expo in China. In 2012, the Yeosu Expo in Korea will be held. These are all major international events that can benefit from the cooperation of the three neighboring countries for the success of those events.

Q: Please explain your strategies to keep spreading the Korean Wave in the future?
A: Now, the Korean Wave has expanded to represent Korea and its culture, not just a Korean-type of public culture, and therefore, I think we have to continuously spread the popularity of Korean foods, entertainment, the Korean language and other elements that make up the Korean culture, not confined to films, music and cartoons. In fact, all aspects of the Korean culture so that everyone in the world will know what the Korean Wave is all about.
We will have to conduct a detailed analysis of the tourism market and develop tourism products related to famous Korean Wave stars and location sites of popular Korean movies, tourism packages linked with performances such as B-Boy and create new Korean Wave contents continuously.
Q: Can you please explain your plans to increase the number of both Japanese and Chinese tourists to Korea?
A: First, on plans to increase tourists from Japan: we plan to develop more upgraded tourist products for Japanese visitors to phase out the image of Korea as an inexpensive tourism destination. We want to build attractive tourism images for Korea based on a storytelling type of tourism, diversifying Korean tourist products to give more options to choose for Japanese tourists. We would like to create new demand for Korean tourism among Japanese travelers in the future.
During the Visit Korea Year 2010-2012, we plan to attract an increased number of tourists from Japan through such mega-events as the 2010 Visit Chungcheong Provinces Year.
We also plan to disperse the Japanese visitors concentrated in Seoul to other areas to achieve numerical balance by region in Korea. Expecting the yen to remain strong this year, we will continue with the Korea shopping tour programs for Japanese visitors.
As for Chinese tourists: we will install ATMs in the locations where many Chinese tourists visit and build a credit card settlement system exclusively for them. In order to phase out the cheap tour programs, we will reform the travel agencies catering to Chinese visitors. We will also develop tourist products tailored to Chinese travelers in terms of their preferences, region of origin and age. We will also develop the certification system for shopping in a move to end the dumping of travel products. We will also secure more seats for Chinese travelers on airplanes flying to Jeju Island, one of the favorite travel destinations for Chinese tourists in Korea.
Q: Can you please tell us something about the events in the VKY campaign related to the globalization of Korean foods?
A: Korean cuisine has become one of the most attractive items for foreign tourists in Korea, and in this connection, we plan to boost the public relations marketing for Korean food items in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corp. to come up with more diversified programs. Our plans include the operation of a website for Korean foods and various international promotion events such as seminars on Korean cuisine in such areas as North America, Southeast Asia and China, among others, taking advantage of the international network of Korean restaurants all over the world to publicize Korean food tourism. The plan also includes a food festival with the participation of famed chefs from Korea, Japan and China.

Q: Please elaborate on your plans for international festivals scheduled for each attractive region and tourism location storytelling-type events?
A: At the present time, various regional international festivals are being held in the country while some of them are being considered to be redundant and less competitive. We plan to steer those regional festivals to get better through a variety of systems such as the honorary graduation from the representative festivals and the limit on support period for the class of the festivals.
The number of cultural tourism festivals will be reduced from 57 to 44 this year so that they will get financial support. The ministry set aside 6.45 billion won to help those festivals improve.
They include the Boryung Mud Festival and the Andong International Mask Dance Festival, the two representative festivals, the eight “best” festivals, the 10 “excellent” festivals and the 24 festivals with “great potential,” among the 44 selected festivals.
They will be classified into three categories ― most excellent, excellent and potential ― and they will receive financial support for three years at a minimum and seven years at the maximum.
We also plan to hold the Busan World Fire Flame Festival, the Jeonju World Tourist Food Festival, the Gyeongju Korean Wave Festival and others with segregated contents during the VKY campaign. In the case of Gyeongju, it will be connected with the restoration project to revive the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom by developing a storytelling-type festival mixing traditional and modern elements of the ancient city so that the Korean Wave would continue to spread around the world.
In addition, we plan to seek out performance arts that can appeal to foreign tourists and develop them so that they may be good enough to present, especially for tourists from Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan and China who are familiar with the Korean Wave-type Korean entertainment such as films, songs, dance and music with September as the target month for their openings. We feel that such performances as traditional dances and arts and B-boy performances are good enough to be presented to foreign visitors, as they have been proven globally presentable already.
Q: Please tell us the current status of foreign tourist attraction plans in connection with international sports events in Korea and your plans.
A: We have already completed a special law to support F1 auto racing, a world-renowned event, scheduled to be held this year in South Jeolla Province for the first time in Korea. In order to prepare for the event to be a great success, the organizing committee was set up on Dec. 15 and the secretariat of the car racing event was launched in the middle of January.
The F1 event will draw huge world attention to Korea, the host country of the event, the most popular auto sport in the world. We have to prepare for the event and publicize it as best we can, as the next Korean F1 event scheduled for 2016 will depend on the results of the auto event this year.
In this connection, the government will give support to the preparation of the auto racing event including its facilities and financial help so that the event will be a huge success.
The government has allocated 52.8 billion won to support the construction of facilities and will send a number of staff to help run it.
Q: How is the Yeosu Expo being prepared for its opening in 2012?
A: The event is not only for Yeosu City, but the entire southeast coastal region and also to uplift the brand image of Korea, requiring all-out cooperative efforts by the local administrative entities, private business firms and the people. The ministry has been providing support to the organizers of the event in the area of expanding tourism infrastructure.
So far, the ministry has provided 4 billion won to help build the Adm. Lee Sun-shin Square and 1 billion won for evening lighting facilities. The ministry has also provided 1.9 billion won to build wastewater treatment facilities in the Hwayang Tourism Complex, 1 billion won to build a foundation for the Suncheon Bay Ecological Garden and 25 billion won for the construction of a marshland center. The ministry also provided 300 million won for the development of tourism products using fossils of pre-historic dinosaurs and 600 million won to build a marine parki. nw

Minister Yu is engaged in a chat with a Japanese lady, this year’s first inbound arrival at Incheon International Airport at the ceremony to kick-off Visit Korea Year 2010-2012 campaign.

A group of dignitaries at the ceremony to kick-start the Visit Korea Year 2010-2012 campaign hold a traditional Korean candle lamp. Dignitaries included Minister Yu, Rep. Koh Heung-gil, chairman of the Culture, Sports, Tourism and Broadcasting Committee of the National Assembly, among others.

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

A view of Changdok Palace, one of the largest ancient palaces built during the Joseon Dynasty in Seoul. A couple of skiing scenes at High1 Ski Resort in Pyeongchang, Ganwon Province.

These are some of the views of the Dongdaemun Historial and Cultural Park being constructed near East Gate in Seoul.

Photo by courtesy of Hong Young-taik