T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting: Chance to Fire Up Korean Tourism Image

‘Tourism, The Key Driver of Shared Growth’

With such mega international events as the G20 Summit and the T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting to take place in Korea and the Visit Korea Year 2010-2012 in high gear, the government and the tourism industry will waste no time in the promotion of Korean tourism around the world and simultaneously upgrading the national image of Korea.
Minister Yu In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in this exclusive written interview, said the government is ready to go to any lengths to boost the national image of Korea and its tourism potential in cooperation with the tourism industry. The following is what Minister Yu had to say in the interview:
Question: Can you please tell the general public about what the T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting is all about since it is not as well known as the G20 Summit?
Answer: The exchange of people among the countries around the world is made through tourism and it has contributed a great deal to the global economic recovery. Tourism benefits all the countries involved including advanced, emerging and under-developed countries. It provides bases for the creation of jobs and economic growth, especially to the underdeveloped countries.
The T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting will spur international cooperation for the tourism industry as the initiatives for its establishment showed at the 18th UNWTO General Assembly held in Kazakhstan in October 2009, to address various matters with regard to tourism, particularly its future development.
In February, the first meeting took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the World Cup final was held. The ministers discussed the need for the tourism industry to pull the economy out of the recession and adopted the “T.20 Joint Declaration” at the end of the meeting.
As far as Korea is concerned, 2010 is the initial year of the Visit Korea Year 2010-2012 and we brought the T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting to Korea, as the G20 Summit is scheduled to take place in Seoul this year.

Q: What is the relationship between the G20 Summit and T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting?
A: The T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting is an international gathering of tourism ministers and organizations related to tourism, a central discussion forum centered around the tourism industry, while the G20 Summit is a top global meeting for finance ministers and heads of state of member countries where global economic matters are discussed.
The concerned areas are different, but both gatherings are participated in by G20 member countries with issues taken up at the two global meetings to include the economic recovery, employment, green growth, trade and investments on their agendas.
The T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting can be said to be closely related to the G20 Summit as it will deal with such pertinent issues as mutual development plans among advanced and underdeveloped countries, which is one of the key agenda items for the G20 Summit.
The Joint Declaration adopted at the T.20 Tourism Ministers Meeting held in South Africa was presented to the G20 Summit Meeting held in Toronto, Canada, and the joint declaration made at the upcoming T.20 event in Buyeo may also be presented to the G20 Summit to take place in Seoul.
Q: As the theme for the Buyeo event ― “Tourism, The Key Driver of Shared Growth” ― suggests, tourism is a core force for sustainable balanced growth with MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) being a new growth driver that needs to be fostered as a high value-added part of the tourism industry.
The T.20 event is an international meeting run by its member countries and is a great opportunity for Korea to assume its position as a leading tourism country and to show off its tourism attractions in order to explain some of the reasons why the international tourism event will be brought to Korea. The event will take place in Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province, for three days from Oct. 11-13 and will be connected to the G20 Summit (Nov. 11-12) and the Visit Korea Year 2010-2012 to boost Korea’s position in the world.

Q: What are some of the key agenda items at the T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting?
A: The role of the T.20 for economic development and recovery, matters related to making the international tourism agenda an international economic agenda, and the adoption of the “Buyeo Declaration” to implement various issues taken up at the T.20 meeting related to the issues for mutual development among advanced and underdeveloped countries discussed at the meeting and joint efforts to put them into action.
Following the official meeting, the “E-Tourism” with the subject of “International Summit: Login Tourism” will take place Oct. 13-14 to discuss the future of tourism.
Q: What is the reason for the T.20 event to take place in Buyeo, since international meetings, like the G20 Summit, have been usually held in large cities such as Seoul?
A: We selected Buyeo to take advantage of various tourism events to be held in the Buyeo area such as the Visit Year for Grand Chungcheong and the World Baekje Grand Festival scheduled from Sept. 17 to Oct. 17 in Gongju and Buyeo in a bid to have the excellence of the Korean cultural tradition widely known at home as well as around the world.
Buyeo is the town where the legacy of the Baekje Kingdom is left intact and was the center of cultural and trade exchanges in ancient times in Northeast Asia. The Baekje Culture Complex where the Lotte Resort is located, next to various sites realizing the ancient kingdom’s culture can be called a “treasury of ancient traditional culture.” The Lotte Resort is the venue of the T.20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting.
Q: Can you tell us what kinds of people the ministers coming to the meeting would be like?
A: The ministers will come from all of the G20 member nations and additional representatives from invited countries totaling 23. The international and regional organizations will also send their representatives. At the present time, it is confirmed that a total of 15 countries including Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia and Thailand will send tourism ministers, while Brazil, Argentina, China, Turkey, Spain and Italy will send vice ministers, and four international organizations; UNWTO, PATA, UNWTO ST-EP Foundation and ILO will send their representatives to Buyeo. We expect many more high-level officials to attend the meeting as we try to encourage the participation of other member countries through diplomats and the UNWTO.
Q: What are the effects that the T.20 meeting will have on Korea?
A: It is expected to boost the economic importance of the tourism industry through green growth and employment and, at the same time, Korea will be a country leading the international cooperation on invigorating global tourism as a member of the advanced nations. Korea will also play the role of a bridge for mutual development among advanced and underdeveloped countries through tourism prior to the G20 Summit. Not only that, Korea will be widely known as the best country in Asia for MICE events as the traditional culture and the beauty of South Chungcheong Province will be publicized widely around the world, along with a heightening of Korea’s general international image.
Q: This year is the initial year for the Visit Korea Year campaign. Please tell us your thoughts on the tourism attraction program.
A: The tourism campaign that was kicked off this year is aimed at attracting over 10 million foreign tourists by the target year with $1.3 billion in annual tourism revenue and to put Korean tourism 20th in terms of its tourism industry’s competitive edge in the world. The campaign is being led by the civilian sector to take advantage of the sector’s creative ideas and effective methods by maximizing them, while the government will back it up through improving systems and the capacity for handling incoming tourists. The program is divided into two large sections such as one for foreign tourist promotion and another for providing excellent services to the foreign tourists visiting Korea.
To invigorate Korean tourism, various events are prepared including Hallyu-related or “Korean Wave” entertainment, fire frame plays and traditional foods as major themes, along with various improved services in such areas as transportation, lodging and shopping as part of diversified incentives to entice foreign tourists. To improve tourism services, various campaigns and lessons are provided for the general public, especially youth and tourism institutions. I take great pleasure in reporting that as of Aug. 31, foreign tourist arrivals in Korea totaled 5.75 million, up 12.8 percent YoY, showing that there should not be much trouble in achieving this year’s goal of 8.5 million foreign tourist arrivals. nw

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

Tourism Ministers participating in the 6th APEC Tourism Ministers’ Conference held in Nara, Japan, from Sept. 22-23, 2009.; (photos from on right page) Tourism ministers participating in the APEC Tourism Ministers’ Conference in Nara, Japan, are shown here in this group photo. Minister Yu In-chon of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, left, shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Sumio Mabuchi just before holding talks on the expansion of tourism between Korea and Japan. ; The ministers are served tea by women wearing traditional Japanese costume.