Everland New Tourist Destination Designation Falls Through

Gyeonggi Province has finalized its 4th Regional Tourism Development Plan and announced on the 7th that it will invest a total of 5.5811 trillion won during this period to promote the development, expansion, and improvement of tourist destinations.

The Regional Tourism Development Plan is a statutory plan pursuant to Article 47 of the Tourism Promotion Act. This 4th plan contains the tourism vision and basic direction for tourism development in the Gyeonggi region to be implemented over five years from this year through 2011.

In this plan, the province decided to continuously develop the existing 14 tourist destinations, expand development of Pyeongtaek Lake and Sanjeong Lake, newly develop Kimpo's Deokpo Fortress, and selected 10 strategic projects including the creation of the Dongpari Peace Village in Paju City.

Additionally, the province divided tourist complexes in the region into five zones—▲Peace Zone (specialized in security tourism areas such as Paju and Pocheon) ▲Ecology Zone (eco-leisure and sports tourism areas with abundant mountain resources such as Yangpyeong and Gapyeong) ▲Culture Zone (traditional culture and arts tourism areas in the southeastern region such as Yongin and Anseong) ▲Marine Zone (west coast marine ecology tourism areas such as Hwaseong and Ansan) ▲Urban Zone (metropolitan culture tourism areas in the greater Seoul region such as Suwon and Anyang)—and decided to develop them with specialized characteristics.

Among these, the province selected five locations—Pyeongtaek Lake in Pyeongtaek, Singyeongsa Temple in Yeoju, Hantan River in Yeoncheon, Sanjeong Lake in Pocheon, and Imjingak in Paju—as regionally focused tourism destinations. It also designated four locations—Yongmunsan in Yangpyeong, Mountain Cabins in Gapyeong, Soyosan in Dongducheon, and Sudong in Namyangju—as continuous development tourism destinations, and five locations—Naeri in Pyeongtaek, Gongneung in Paju, Baekyun Valley in Pocheon, Janghheung in Yangju, and Daeseong in Gapyeong—as tourism destinations subject to remodeling for respective development.

In particular, Pyeongtaek Lake was designated for development as a marine zone hub tourism destination, with the existing tourism complex area of 676,000 square meters to be expanded to 2,135,000 square meters. Sanjeong Lake in Pocheon, a hub tourism destination in the ecology zone, is also to be enlarged from the existing 644,000 square meters to 1,103,000 square meters.

Additionally, 270,000 square meters in the Sinan-ri area of Daegot-myeon, Kimpo City, located at the intersection of the marine zone and peace zone, will be newly developed as Deokpo Fortress tourism destination.

The province plans to invest a total of 5.5811 trillion won, comprising 928.4 billion won in national funding, 1.3636 trillion won in local funding, and 3.2891 trillion won in private investment, to implement these projects.

However, the contentious issue of new designation as a tourist destination for Everland in Yongin fell through due to opposition from the Han River Watershed Management Office.

Meanwhile, places designated as tourist destinations receive a 50% reduction in acquisition and registration taxes, and property taxes and special land taxes are also reduced by 50% for five years.