"Multiple fusion systems are necessary in the tourism industry and I would like to make the tourism business one of the new future growth engines in closer cooperation with each government agency and local autonomous administrations,” said President Chung Chang-soo of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) at his inaugural media conference on Sept. 15. He said all organizations need to develop close cooperation with government agencies and public organizations, groups and local autonomous administrations through broader communications. “Good results come from close cooperation with government ministries and autonomous administrations,” the new CEO at KTO said.
Tourism can only be developed fully when highways and other necessary infrastructure are established to make sure tourists can get where they need to go in the country. Effective and efficient infrastructure will allow tourists to have more access to Korea, lodgings, and indigenous foods, Chung said.
Making the tourism industry the a great future growth engine is the most urgent task, he added. “We ought to try to create jobs in the tourism industry, enhance the competitive edge of the industry, and diversify the industry by finding new tourist destinations around the country under a renewed determination to positively go for the task.”
He said he will look towards the fusion of ICT and tourism to develop the sectors further by finding where ICT can be applied to make tourism creative enough to attract tourists.
Chung also said diverse start-ups will be explored so that they can participate in development of the tailor-made tourist products and distribution as required by the tourism market today, where individual free tourism has been growing fast. The KTO will lead the projects to develop an environment for start-ups to launch their businesses more easily, creating jobs ultimately. The KTO will work with the public sector and the private sector as well boosting its role to create the most conducive environment for startups to kick off their operations, Chung said.
He said he would also allocate his time to strengthen the competitive edges of local tourism products taking advantage of KTO’s close cooperative ties with government agencies and local autonomous administrations.
To make tourism a new growth engine, Chung said regional tourism should be the centerpiece of the tourism industry. The KTO, he said, will provide its support to boosting the competitive power of local tourism content by connecting it with the KTO’s cooperative connections with government agencies and local autonomous administrations.
The KTO has been proactive in a number of ways this year.
The organization kicked off a massive campaign to boost the number of foreign tourist arrivals in Korea by inviting some 200 officials from tourist agencies in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Seoul from July 22 to 25. The mission aimed to assure them that MERS had run its course.
The tours were arranged specifically for them. They included the most famous tourist sites in Korea and displays of the most recently developed tourist package products. Korea Aviation Corp. and the Korean Ginseng Corp. participated in the program as supporters. Airlines such as Asiana Airlines and Korean Air chipped in to win back Chinese tourists by offering?free airline tickets at events, free baggage charges, special discounts for group tourists, and offers of coupons in duty free shops and department stores to lure them back to Korea.
The event was part of the KTO’s “One Hundred Days Strategy” to attract foreign tourists back to Korea by convincing them that MERS is long gone. The KTO decided to approach the Chinese sphere first, knowing that it will take time to get tourists from all corners of the world to visit Korea again now that the contagious disease has been arrested and the country is running normally. The KTO made up the program alarmed by the reductions in the number of Chinese tourists at the end of June with only 205,541 foreign tourists visiting the country compared to 1.13 million at the same time last year, down 82.1 percent, lead the way by Chinese tourists.
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