An ambitious state campaign to attract more than 10 million tourists to Korea will be the main focus of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) next year, KTO chief Lee Charm said, ahead of the campaign's official launching ceremony on Nov. 11 in Seoul.
``The underlining theme of all of our major projects will be the 2010-2012 Visit Korea Year' project,'' the KTO president said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. ``We will send promotional teams to Japan, China and Southeast Asia and will design hallyu events and festivals to disseminate our efforts.''
In an attempt to become a tourism superpower in Asia, Korea has launched a ``Visit Korea Year'' initiative once again. The last was held in 2001-2002 when Korea co-hosted the World Cup finals.
``Through a successful campaign, we hope that the nation's tourism revenue will reach over $10 billion and that Korea will enter the list of top 20 countries in a survey of tourism competitiveness,'' Lee said. Currently, it is ranked 31st in the 2009 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
No mention of "Visit Korea Year: 2010-2012" being, um, actually three years. Instead, more of the same:
Korea has been an underdog in the field of tourism, not because it lacks reasons to visit, but because of the lack of tourism infrastructure, Lee said.
Yeah, and you know what contributes to that? Ridiculous English slogans and webpages designed to attract foreign tourists written entirely in Korean.
4 comments:
They gotta at least try. I got married a few weeks ago, and my family came over. They were all impressed at how unpretentious and how untouristy everything was. I took my parents to Namhae, and the market in "Hwagae, Hadong." Along the way we stumbled upon an old noble's house that had a scarecrow contest in front of it in a large rice field. Also at the Noble's house I treated my parents to some Dong Dong Joo and Pajeon. Myself before I came to Korea, and my parents had never seen rice fields before.
If you have never been here before, I think that Korea has a bunch of bizarre and interesting sites that would definately leave an impression. The thing is, is that people gotta get the hell out of Seoul. There are many beautiful mountains and vistas along the less populated coasts. It is a shame that people tend to put that vapid artillery target of neon luminescense in front of all of their thoughts when they think of Korea. (That is discounting the Japanese tourists in Myeong Dong, but the Japanese seem to be interested in saving money on the same skin creams and magic cures for body temperatures that Koreans divine)
Hey, this is a country where convenience stores are open "25 hours a day":
http://wiki.galbijim.com/Image:GS_25.jpg
That alone gives you two extra weeks per year!
It's a shame that they haven't realized that, while their alphabet is an excellent one, not everybody has taken the time to learn it (and the language). Tourists won't be so hyped about any sort of museums or historical sites in which they cannot read a single word, and it poses a further problem if they don't come to the country in the first place.
Nom nom nom...
I don't think the KTO is targeting English speakers - the article's pretty explicit in the KTO reaching out to Southeast Asia, not America or western Europe or even Australia. There's a quote in the article that says Korean tourism infrastructure is less the tourist's complaint than is expenses - Korea's more expensive to visit than say, Japan. That tells me that KTO's attentive to SE Asia, not the west, as the article says.
As for tourism websites using english slogans - well, english is the commercial language. It's easier for a business to slogan in English than it is for the same business to slogan in each country's language. Doesn't mean English is meant to appeal to English speakers.
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