Yongin City Promotes Rural Experience Train Trips Linked with Light Rail Transit

Yongin City will implement a rural tourism experience linked with light rail transit riding on the 14th at Cheonggye Ranch located in Baekam-myeon, targeting kindergarten students from Daejeon. The program will include various ranch experiences such as cheese and pizza making, and bottle-feeding calves, combined with light rail transit rides.

The city concluded a business agreement with Korail Korean Railroad Corporation in July 2012 and planned the "Rural Experience Train Trip" product. The city has promoted Yongin's rural experience tourism by placing Korail product promotional flyers at 63 major stations nationwide including Seoul Station and Yeongdeungpo Station, displaying video promotions on KTX trains, and publishing in Korail magazines. Through continuous product operation, the city achieved results of attracting urban residents to Yongin's countryside with 7 trips in 2012 and 78 trips last year.

The "Rural Experience Train Trip" product operates diverse offerings targeting Yongin Rural Theme Park along with 17 experience villages and farms. The system works as follows: when visitors arrive at Suwon Station or Giheung Station by train from across the country, they visit and experience each farm and village via buses supported by the city.

Starting with this event, Yongin City plans to actively link rural experiences with light rail transit this year to create products that enable combined rural tourism and to open flash markets. The city expects these initiatives will contribute to light rail transit activation and income improvement for experience farms and villages. This event on the 14th is a product jointly planned by Wintopia Director Baek Suk-hyun and the Yongin City Agricultural Technology Center.

Wintopia Director Baek Suk-hyun, a rural tourism product development specialist, stated, "Yongin has a great advantage in that rural experience farms and villages are adjacent to each other, allowing diverse experiences within a short time," and added, "By linking with light rail transit, this is a good program that can showcase the characteristics of a rural-urban complex city and is expected to receive strong support from urban residents in nearby metropolitan areas seeking rural experiences."

Kim Kyu-ho, Director of the Yongin City Agricultural Technology Center, also said, "This experience event will be a good opportunity for urban light rail transit and rural experience farms to achieve mutual growth," and stated, "We will make greater efforts going forward to enable more diverse rural experiences."