At Harmony Ballroom of Inter-Continental Hotel at Coex, Grand Korea Leisure (GKL) declared its new Corporate Value Vision on Oct. 15, signaling its step forward to achieve 3 trillion won in sales by 2025. Their mission is to create a “healthy tourism ecological system” with public casinos as a base, GKL said recently.
GKL held a workshop for all of their employees in June to listen to various ideas and opinions on GKL’s future operation to cope with the rapidly changing paradigm of the tourism leisure industry in Korea and overseas. The company launched two task forces in July to reestablish the company’s value and vision, one named the Leader Group and the other named the Keyman Group. The Leader Group is made up of 20 executives and managers while the Keyman Group consists of 25 employees from all sections of the company. Each group met for three times to thrash out ideas and opinions collected from the workshop to come up with a new mission, core value and vision for GKL.
Some 500 people from tourism companies in and out of Korea, and related companies came to the workshop, which included a performance following the declaration of the new vision.
In his commemorative speech, GKL CEO Lim Byeong-soo said GKL has been trying to improve the public understanding of casinos and to build a healthy tourism ecological system. “In order to complete the mission, we have to trust the customers and fellow employees as well as respect them and be at the forefront of what the company aims to accomplish in fair and transparent ways so that GKL would win the public trust,” he said.
GKL, set up in 2005 with a government investment, now operates three casinos, Seven Luck Casinos in Gangnam district and at Hilton Hotel in Seoul, one in Lotte Hotel in Busan, three altogether. So far 1.6 million foreign tourists visited the casinos.
GKL’s market was valued at 2.78 trillion won as of Aug. 31 this year and ranked 85th in the KOSPI rankings with the company scheduled to be listed on the KOSPI 200 at the end of September.
The company’s turnover last year amounted to $499 million and is projected to secure $545 million in sales this year.
GKL, a subsidiary of Korea Tourism Organization, is a public enterprise established to attract more foreign tourists to enhance the international competitiveness of the Korean casino industry, and to use the revenue generated from casino operations to invest in building tourism-related infrastructure and public projects.
For its high rate of foreign exchange earning and value added services, the casino industry is a leader in the development of the tourism-service industry. As a result, it is often referred to as a "patriotic industry." In fact, the casino industry substantially affects the entire tourism industry including travel, accommodations, shopping and dining. In addition, it contributes to job creation due to its nature as a genuine personnel-intensive service industry. Furthermore, it is the leading industry in attracting foreign tourists, generating foreign income and contributing to the national development more than its apparent contributive figures. Due to these factors, the casino industry can no longer be accused of being an industry of social evil (due to the nature of gambling) because it plays important roles for the development of society and the national economy.
GKL aims to become a premier company that pursues high profitability and contributes to the national economy through a consistent profit model. It has a large responsibility to develop into a company loved by the nation by giving its all to the customers and the shareholders. “We look forward to your encouragement and help so that we can continue to grow and become a leading casino enterprise that expands,” said the company.
