Jeju Special Self-Governing Province has changed its tourism strategy to target quality from quantity . On April 18, the province said it would focus on a number of key factors including the number of days per stay; average expenditure per tourist; tourists’ satisfaction; travel tastes; and marketing diversification.
The self-governing province said the plan was completed after input was received from tourism related organizations on the island, including the Jeju Tourism Agency, the Jeju Tourism Association, travel agencies and advice from tourism experts. The final consists of 14 major tasks and 86 detailed steps to achieve the target, tourism officials of the province said.
To be accomplished within one or two years include 48 tasks and those to be achieved within three years include 38 more, they said.
The tasks to be taken care of before launching the plan include reforming a tourism information guide, the development of new tourism products, improvement of transportation systems, upgrading welcome services for tourists, boosting the quality of tourism, effective use of tourism funds, development of tourism products, and “fusion tourism” connecting other regions and environment-friendly tourism ecology, among others.
The tasks to be accomplished after tourism plan is implemented are management of various problems connected with tourism, and policies related to tourism conditions include the proper training of tourism manpower, crises management, effective management of tourism funds, and systemizing tourism survey, analyses under a system, among others.
The officials of the province said they will no longer conduct marketing and tourism promotion programs on quantitative growth of tourism on the island, but will target quality growth instead. They will conduct detailed analyses of target collectives by channeling its target marketing to include online marketing, and the marketing strategy focused on cooperative ventures and specialized tourism.
They will also conduct a market survey for countries that send many tourists to Jeju so that marketing programs can be more detailed and specific to lure even more tourists from those countries. In the case of China, marketing programs will be further targeted at inland regions of the country including Chengdu and Xian, with the detailed program targeting at certain age groups of both men and women.
The new plan also calls for streamlining the operation of the online system to faithfully reflect the management of tourism activities divided into the pre-travel and after travel events and programs. The pre-tour sections will show information regarding tour programs on the homepage and the “after tour” portion of the website will allow users to report any unsatisfactory points that need to be addressed to make Jeju tourism more exciting and enticing.
Mid-term tasks include the development of a representative tourism brand for Jeju Island and slogans; the training of personnel in exchange with PATA and Korea National Tourism Organization and the utilization of celebrities to spur the Korean tourism and location of tourism films to expand the marketing areas.
The plan will also call for the reform of tourism offices and establish policies to spur the commercial activities of various regions. At the present time, the tourism offices are too small and their operations are limited to simple things like giving directions and providing tourism guidance. The plan also calls for standardizing the manuals of the tourism guide offices.
Also in the medium-term, a land-mark type of tourism office will be set up with its operation diversified to include such activities as selling tourism commodities.
The plan also calls for boosting foreign tourists’ satisfaction in shopping facilities, with such activities as expanding the duty-free shops and developing more “shopping corners” in the areas popular with foreign tourists.
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A view of the Moon-som in Seoguipo, Jeju Province, one of the many scenic spots on the island.(Photo:Jeju Goverment)
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