Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon delivers a speech at a ceremony to open Seoul Tourism Plaza. (Photos: SMG)

The tourism industry in Korea and abroad has suffered the hardest from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is stilling lingering on.

But the Korean tourism industry, particularly that in Seoul, is trying to explore ways of overcoming the pandemic and turning around the sagging industry.

In this context, Seoul Tourism Plaza, which opened recently, is expected to serve as a control tower to secure an upper hand in future tourism trends.

The opening of Seoul Tourism Plaza, operated by Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Tourism Organization (STO), is designed to offer support for the growth and renaissance of Seoul’s tourism industry, overcoming the effects of the pandemic.

Seoul Tourism Plaza is created on a 6,942 square meter floor area – roughly one-third of the total floor space of the Samil Building in Gwancheol-dong, downtown Seoul.

On the first floor of the plaza is the Tourism Information Center in which travelers from Korea and abroad are offered all information, including those tailored to meet their needs based on themes and tourism courses.

The Tourism Information Center also serves as a tourism caffe-cum library in which people can rest and read books on traveling. The Civilian Tourism Academy is operated on the fourth floor.

Seoul Broadcasting Studio, tourism/MICE workshops and a publicity hall for medical tourism are accommodated on the 11th floor.

People are offered an opportunity to produce tourism content and experience medical tourism.

Seoul Tourism Plaza is expected to have synergetic effects, putting Seoul’s tourism industry on the right track as it accommodates major organizations related to the tourism industry, including the Seoul Tourism Association, Australia Tourism Bureau, promising startups, and Korea PCO Association.

Among the tenant startups are “Imperfect,” specializing in the development and operation of AR-based tourism platforms, “Musicking,” specializing in hallyu content subscription services and “Modernhan,” operating hanbok and traditional Korean culture experience platforms.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government offers the startups an office space as well as assistance programs tailored to meet their needs.

YouTube and advertising videos can be produced at on-line studios in Seoul Tourism Plaza while networking with tourism associations, foreign tourism bureaus and other tourism organizations can be offered.

Hong Jae-sun, director of the Tourism Content Team at STO, said programs to offer consulting services such as legal and tax affairs as well as psychology counseling on people with the tourism industry, including officials with bankrupted tourism businesses, are in place.

Counselors versed in foreign languages such as English, Russian and Chinese, are stationed to give information on the medical tourism, including beauty treatment, cosmetic surgeries and herbal medicine at a publicity hall of the “Medical Korea,” installed by Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), he said.

Youtubers’ video and advertisement video production as well as networking with entities related to the tourism sector are made available at Seoul Tourism Plaza, Director Hong said.

Dignitaries, including Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and Seoul Metropolitan Council Chairman Kim In-ho, attend a performance celebrating the opening of Seoul Tourism Plaza.

STO Preparing for Seoul Lantern Festival 2021’s Off-line, On-Line Event

Hong said, “We’re making preparations to make the Seoul Lantern Festival 2021, slated for late this year, an on-line and off-line event, as the process of inoculating people in Korea is gaining.”

A decision to make Seoul Lantern Festival 2021 an off-line event will hinge on the situation of the pandemic, he added.

The Seoul Lantern Festival is one of Seoul’s best-known cultural celebrations.

The event is held between November and December along the Cheonggycheon Stream in downtown Seoul and features hundreds of intricate life size lanterns created by artists from around the world.

A variety of lantern-themed activities, including a lantern making contest, will feature at the two-week event.