So, does Korean tourism lack a sales point?
That’s the question the Kyunghyang Shinmun’s Newsmaker magazine asks. It’s a good piece that raises a couple of issue — I’ve quickly summarized (i.e., it’s not a word-for-word translation) it for both your reading enjoyment and careful consideration.
Korea Tourism Has No ‘Sales Point’
Last year, over 6.4 million foreign tourists came to Korea, a 4.8% increase over the previous year. While Koreans tend to head overseas in summer, the foreign tourist season for Korea is a bit more spread out. The Japanese come in January, the Chinese in February, and Southeast Asians in July, November and December. Japanese accounted for the largest number of tourists at 2.215 million, followed by Chinese at 1.07 million. Relatively very few tourists come from North America, Europe and Oceania. Moreover, most of the American, European and Australian/New Zealand tourists that come on package tours come to Korea via China or Japan. Only 42.2% of them came purely for tourism purposes; 40.3% came for business or other professional activities.
Chinese Bitch About the Food
According to a poll conducted by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) of foreign tourists who visited Korea in 2007, most visited Seoul (73.4%), but that percentage is dropping every year. Other popular destinations were Incheon (19.1%), Busan (18.8%) and Jeju-do (13.8%).
So what are these guys seeing? Well, package tours differ according to price, but in terms of sightseeing, they don’t differ all that much. In the case of the Seoul metro area, tourists are usually brought to Gyeongbokgung, N Seoul Tower, Jongmyo, Namsan Hanok Village, Changdeokgung, Cheong Wa Dae, Insa-dong, Myeong-dong, Namdaemun and Dongdaemun Market, Unification Observatory and Everland. Packages usually include, at least as options, performances like Nanta, B-Boy, Chungdong Theater’s Korean traditional performances and the Walker Hill show. In Jeju-do, tourists see Seongsan Ilchulgong Peak, Jungmun Resort and the beaches.
The barbarians, however, are not particularly satisfied with the package tours. Firstly, they don’t get to see a whole lot, and the cheap tours tend to rush around, giving tourists a rather poor impression of Korea. Chinese tourists are particularly unhappy campers. This is because of option tours, frequent stops to travel-agency designated shops and bad food. Package tours for Chinese tend to be around 500,000-600,000 won. Kim Jong-sik, the president of a travel company that markets to Chinese tourists said Chinese often complain about the lack of nightlife in Korea and the food. Our Chinese neighbors, who traditionally eat generous amounts of oily, fried foods, come to Korea expecting the lavish palace cuisine seen in the popular Korean drama “Daejanggeum,” but they often leave disappointed. 500,000-600,000 won package tours usually provide meals of around 5,000 won, often one-course meals like seolleongtang. Moreover, since meals frequently consist of easily digested foods like vegetables, Chinese tourists often feel hungry.
Yes, you read that right.
The tourists who come on packages at this price range stay in places like the New Gukje, Lex, New Seoul, Yeongdong and Dongseoul Hotels.
Kim said Chinese, who have pretty impressive palaces like the Forbidden City, don’t get especially excited by Korea’s palaces, but they do like Dongdaemun, Myeong-dong and duty free shops. Singaporeans and Southeast Asians, too, tend to like shopping in Myeong-dong and Dongdaemun. This is because Korea is seen as on the vanguard of fashion and beauty. Tours including beauty stuff like wedding photos (get your makeup and dress done in Korea!) and skin scaling are popular. According to the KTO survey, the most common activity tourists did in Korea was shop (65.5%), and Myeong-dong (55.1%) was the most impressive destination.
Also, the number of young Japanese and Southeast Asian travelers coming to Korea on their own rather than on a package tour is climbing every year.
Aggressively Drawing Asian Tourists
The competitiveness of Korean tourism is falling compared to that of its neighbors, however. This is because Korea doesn’t have that much in terms of tourism resources (i.e., things to see), and it’s expensive. According to an October survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce of 400 local travel companies, 64.4% said Korea’s tourism industry was uncompetitive and its future unpromising. Some 25.7% said with international competition intense, the future was unclear. In fact, the Japanese, Singaporean and Malaysian governments have aggressively come out to draw foreign tourists, raising the level of competition between Asian countries over the tourism market.
The case of Japan, which for the last two years has aggressively targeted the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets, is striking. Jang Yu-jae, the president of another tour company, said the Japanese government, tourism authorities, local governments and hotels were working together to actively draw foreign tourists. By sending promotional teams to each country, lowering costs and giving incentives to local tour companies, Japan was seeing tangible results. In terms of price competitiveness, one Chinese tour company was offering a 5-day, 4-night tour package to Korea (Busan-Seoul-Jeju) for 620,000 won, while a 6-day, 5-night trip to that evil island-stealing nation across the East Sea (Osaka-Hakone-Tokyo) cost 730,000 won. For only 110,000 won more, you could stay an extra day in Japan. And there’s more to see. Compared to Japan, were many first-time visitors go back again and again to visit other regions, in the case of Korea, many don’t come back after they’ve been to Seoul, Jeju and Busan, believing there to be little else to see. This, says Newsmaker, suggests a lot.
Local travel agencies in China and Southeast Asia, too, push tours to Japan over Korea. Because of the aggressive promotion by the Japanese government, sales of tour products to Japan are more profitable than those to Korea. Jang said in China, many travel agencies treat tour packages to Korea and Japan the same, but when they sell a package, the margin left over from a Japanese tour package is three times that of a Korean one.
The KTO has pledged to bring 10 million tourists to Korea by 2010, and Seoul City said it will bring 12 million tourists. No clear plans to reach this goal, however, have yet been made. The KTO is working with the inbound tourism agency to get off the cheap package tour thing and develop mid-to-high range tourism products. The question, however, is whether they will be able to get back from Japan and elsewhere the tourists they’ve taken.
Marmot’s Note: There’s a lot to say about this, but just off the top of my head, I think it’s a sin that Gyeongju isn’t on the top three travel destinations, and moreover, I think it’s important to set realistic goals. Half a country — and let’s face it, that’s what the Republic of Korea is — is going to have a tough time competing with Japan for tourists. That said, there’s plenty to see, and it could be promoted a lot better than it is, but that’s not going to happen effectively if there’s a fixation with numbers. You’ve got to be comfortable with what you’ve got before you flaunt it, and truth be told, I’m not quite sure if the powers that be — be it on the national or local level — are fully there yet.
