Gyeonggi Province Launches Full-Scale Marketing Campaign to Attract 4 Million Foreign Tourists This Year

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Kim Gap-dong] Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization are launching an all-out marketing campaign aimed at attracting 4 million foreign tourists to the province.

According to Gyeonggi Province on the 29th, with the end of COVID-19 and the resumption of group tourism for Chinese visitors to Korea, the number of foreign visitors to Korea continues to grow. Foreign tourists visiting Gyeonggi Province increased from 210,000 in 2021 to 450,000 in 2022, and reached 1.4 million last year. However, this still falls short compared to 2.6 million visitors in 2019 before COVID-19.

Accordingly, the province announced an overseas marketing strategy aimed at attracting 4 million foreign tourists by taking advantage of the full reopening of the Chinese market and the global expansion trend of the fourth wave of Korean Wave culture, including K-culture and K-food.

To achieve this goal, the province will pursue its 2024 tourist attraction strategy in four directions: ▲strengthening Gyeonggi Province's recognition as a tourist destination ▲strengthening cooperation with world-renowned travel companies ▲expanding cultural and tourism exchanges with overseas sister and friendly regions ▲developing new markets such as the Americas and Middle East.

First, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization plans to establish overseas local representative offices for the first time among regional tourism organizations to step up promotion efforts to raise awareness of Gyeonggi Province. In addition to existing promotional offices in Shanghai, Qingdao, Taipei, and Bangkok, which are operated through delegated management, the organization plans to establish directly-operated representative offices. These will pursue aggressive marketing strategies including attracting Gyeonggi Province incentive tourism from excellent global companies in the region and implementing customized marketing through real-time analysis of tourism trends. The province will also conduct promotional campaigns using influential figures, foreign supporters residing in Korea, and overseas Gyeonggi tourism brand advertisements through existing online and offline channels.

Second, the province will strengthen cooperative relationships with major overseas travel companies. To promote the influx of individual travelers and small group tourists, which have surged since the end of COVID-19, the province signed a business agreement with TripDotCom, Asia's largest online travel platform targeting China, in January. The province plans to continue collaborating with Klook (targeting Southeast Asia), TripAdvisor (targeting the Americas), Rakuten (Japan), and others to jointly conduct marketing.

Additionally, Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization plan to sign business agreements with 24 partner travel agencies from 12 countries this year, up from 12 agencies from 10 countries last year. Through this, the province expects to develop and expand Gyeonggi tourism products tailored to the travel preferences of tourists from each country. For example, through collaboration with major Japanese travel industry players, the province will develop small group travel products and diversify visiting areas in the province to focus on restaurants and local experiences preferred by Japanese tourists. For the Southeast Asian market, which is a core market, the province plans to sell extended stay tourism products in cooperation with major overseas travel agencies and attract group tourists.

Third, the province will promote tourist attraction marketing by strengthening friendly cooperation with overseas local governments. The province currently has sister and friendly relationships with Liaoning Province, Shandong Province, Jiangsu Province, Guangdong Province, Chongqing, and Heilongjiang Province in China. Based on these relationships, the province plans to hold joint public-private tourism briefings (roadshows) in major cities of these regions to attract group tourists and increase the scale of Chinese tourists to the 2019 pre-COVID level (600,000 visitors).

Fourth, reflecting the trend of foreign visitors preferring Korean culture diversifying from Southeast Asia and the Chinese-speaking world to the Americas and the Middle East, the province plans to discover and expand promotion of tourism products such as the DMZ, activities, Korean Wave, and world heritage sites preferred by tourists from these countries. Additionally, the province will develop tourism products through collaboration with major local travel agencies in the Americas and Middle East.

Furthermore, the province will operate daily tour buses running between Seoul and major tourist attractions in Gyeonggi Province to provide travel convenience for independent travelers from the Americas, which comprise most of Western visitors to Korea. The province plans to expand the existing five routes of the Gyeonggi Tour Line (EG Tour)—Yongin-Suwon, Pocheon, Gwangju-Yangpyeong-Gapyeong, Paju, and Suwon—to seven routes this year.

A province official stated, "While Gyeonggi Province has the disadvantage of being dispersed in tourist resources and lacking public transportation infrastructure, we will overcome this through the comprehensive measures outlined above," and added, "We will do our utmost for the complete recovery of Gyeonggi Province's tourism industry, which has been difficult due to COVID-19, and to attract 4 million foreign tourists."