Commissioner Lee Won-jae of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority (Photo: IFEZ)

Incheon City is planning to build a massive tourist complex in a hilly coastal area just west of Incheon International Airport after designating it as a free economic zone.

According to the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority, the new tourist complex, if completed in the Mount Eulwang area in the city's Yongyudo district by 2024, will have various entertainment and cultural facilities, including a K-pop concert hall and movie and television show filming studios.

The area covering about 807,000 square meters will also have a "hallyu," or Korean wave, theme park, a Korean traditional hotel, a residential hotel and an outdoor mall in addition to the integrated movie and television filming facilities.

The authority affiliated with the Incheon Metropolitan Government will soon ask the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to approve its plan to designate the Mount Eulwang area as a free economic zone.

The authority has already signed a contract worth 230 billion won ($192 million) with SC Industrial Development Co., a private developer, on the development of the Mount Eulwang area.

The construction will begin in December next year if the industry ministry approves the free economic zone designation during the first half of 2020.

A bird’s eye view of a massive tourist complex to be built in a hilly coastal area as large as 800,000 square meters near Incheon Int’l Airport by 2024 after the area is designated as a free economic zone. (Photo: Incheon City)

The Mount Eulwang area was designated as a free economic zone in 2003 but the designation was canceled in February last year due to the absence of development projects for a long period.

Officials expect that the Mount Eulwang tourist complex, if completed, will be popular with domestic and foreign tourists, as well as Incheon International Airport's transit passengers, which reach about 10 million annually.

 The “Inspire Integrated Resort,” a multipurpose resort with a hotel, theme park and casino, is to be dedicated adjacent to Incheon International Airport by 2022.

Last year, Incheon International Airport Corporation signed a cooperation agreement for the development of the integrated resort with Inspire Integrated Resort and Paramount Pictures.

The special purpose company was established by Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority (MTGA) operator of Mohegan Sun properties through the United States with a 70 percent stake and KCC, a Korean company with a 30 percent stake.

KCC withdrew from the project, and MTGA is now allowed to become the sole developer with a 100 percent stake.

The period of undertaking the multi-phase development project named Project Inspire is extended from March 2020 to 2022.

The development of hallyu content, a precondition for granting a license of the project by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, is retained.

The deal reached last year included a plan to build a concert hall for K-pop that can accommodate 15,000 seats.

The overhauled project calls for costing 1.5 trillion won to build a multi-purpose resort and 1.3 trillion to construct a theme park, on top of three hotel buildings with a combined 1,260 rooms.

It has economic spill-over effects such as an estimated 4 trillion in production induction, about 1.2 trillion won in value-added induction, and 750 billion won in income induction.

In particular, the project is expected to attract about 3 million inbound tourists and some 600,000 transit passengers per annum on top of earning tourism revenues worth 6 trillion won and other synergetic effects for offering convenience to tourists.