New President Chung Chang-soo of Korea Tourism Organization.

Korea Tourism Organization President Chung Chang-soo holds a meeting of MICE industry representatives to attract foreign tourists at the KTO headquarters in Wonju on Aug. 24.(Photos:KTO)

New President Chung Chang-soo of the Korea Tourism Organization(KTO) called on the tourism industry in Korea to get together for renaissance in  tourism in Korea, especially, foreign tourist arrivals which have been slowed down to a crisis proportion.

In his inaugural speech at a ceremony held on Aug. 10 at  the state-run tourism company’s head office in Wonju, Gangwon Province, he said KTO has the debt ratio exceeding 40 percent of its capital with its sale revenue and profits down, putting the company into a corner that is difficult to get out of. One of the toughest problems the company is faced with has been replacing the duty free shop operation that the company gave up, which had been a great profit source for the company. 

The new KTO CEO also noted that the tourism slowed down since the outbreak of MERS has been continuing amid the heated competition to attract the Chinese tourists  among the Asian countries including Japan, and the countries in Southeast Asia.

Chung called for three major policies to defuse the problems for the company with the first one being to strengthen the personnel policies to be based on merits under a just corporate culture to award its employees based on their achievements. The purpose of the new personnel policy is to maximize every officer and staff’s capabilities as much as possible into their jobs and put into good uses their experiences and ideas into the work for the company, he said.

Chung also said he will try to run the company to be a top state-run company in the government revaluation of government-owned companies  in tune with the government policy to improve the management of state-run enterprises and organizations through reforms.

He will try to lead the KTO to create jobs through its support of the start-ups and build a leading  smart tourism service environment to function as a growth engine for the Creative Economy Drive being pushed by the government.

“We ought to build the conditions in the country for every one to enjoy tourism in his daily life so that the tourism industry will be able to grow substantially in the future linked up with government plan for regional development of the country,” Chung said.

He continued that he will see that a maecro plan will be drawn up for specialization of tourist items for each region around the country. Some tourism programs will have tailor-made  tourism contents  for tourists from certain foreign countries to let them highly value their tours in Korea and the marketing for those tours will be strengthened. The ultimate purpose for the plan is to make them feel want to return to Korea for more sightseeing.

The private sector plays a critical role in  tourism and it  needs direct and voluntary joint participation by academics, industry and civil organizations to help build the tourism industry with a sustainable growth  with clear directions and sustainable official support, not just one-time event and regulations provided  by the public sector.

The Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic is only three years away, with the summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo in 2020 followed by the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics which are expected to be the occasions for fair competition to attract foreign tourists by Asian countries

The new KTO CEO passed the High Civil State Examination in 1979 to start his public career with the Ministry of Government Administration first and then with the Gangwon Provincial Administration. He moved to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in 1991 and served until 2011.