As Korea looks for ways to boost its economy and international profile, tourism is being highlighted as a way of accomplishing both these goals. The country features a variety of attractions, but the biggest challenge for the tourism industry is making them known to globe-trotting travelers. Gyeonggi Tourism Organization is preparing for the nation's biggest tourism exhibition, the 6th annual Gyeonggi International Travel Mart. It will be held from Nov. 13 to 16 at KINTEX in Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province. CEO of Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, Lim Byoung-soo explains, "For successful hosting of the tourism fair comprising inbound, outbound and internal tourism, we invited distinguished domestic and foreign guests from all walks of life. We are making all-out efforts to have the event run smoothly and be successful." He continues, "About 150,000 domestic and foreign guests are expected to visit the international travel fair this time, following 103,166 visitors in 2008."

The Gyeonggi Tourism Organization is now busy preparing for a variety of contents, including tourism information, experience and business, to herald the province's tourist potential and attract visitors. "Through cooperative projects with tourism-related institutions, we plan to establish a foundation to create profit structure and sell tourism products by region through business exchanges between local governments and travel agencies," Lim said in an interview with Korea IT Times. "Based on such efforts and growth, I hope the 2012 Gyeonggi International Travel Mart will become the Asia's biggest tourism industry exhibition," said the top official of a tourism organization.

 

Various events of Gyeonggi International Travel Mart

The 6th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart will consist of various exhibitions, special events and side attractions. Among the exhibition events are halls representing 31 cities from Korea and abroad, tourism souvenir shops, and tourism products for temple and home stays, Lim said. "By holding a food fair during the tourism event, titled World Street Food Festival, Gyeonggi Tourism Organization is planning to provide visitors with the chance to enjoy the province's local food and exotic foods of foreign countries," he said. "In the noodle zone, particularly, special noodle foods of Korea, China, Japan and Italy will be introduced. Meanwhile, a total of 14 countries in from Asia, Europe, Africa and America will show off their foods in the Street Food Zone," said Lim.

 

Special events at Gyeonggi tourism exhibition

 

To elevate the morale of high school students majoring in tourism and provide them with some hands-on training, it will also hold the "tourism service competition." "This event is expected to greatly contribute to the development of the region's tourism industry by expanding employment opportunities for students majoring in tourism," he said. "GITF amateur B-boy battle Gyeonggi 2008" will be held to foster young and talented street dancers and publicize Korean tourism through B-boys who once raised the boom of "hallyu (Korean wave)," he said. The event is designed to actively foster B-boys in the metropolitan area and cultivate youths' ability through systematic supports, Lim explained. The Theme Experience Hall will offer various experiences to visitors including survival games, rock-climbing and four-wheel-drive motor vehicles. Leisure activities are highly important factors for tourism, Lim said, "We will operate the theme experience hall to provide domestic and foreign visitors with information related to leisure & sports tourism and chances to directly experience various leisure activities." At the theme experience hall, visitors can experience leisure sports, camping, light plane and yacht boats, as well as Korea's traditional folklore. As the side events of the 6th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart, there will be Korean and foreign folklore performances and a photo exhibition of work by world-famous photographers.

 

Introduction of exhibition halls

About 300 institutions from 30 countries are scheduled to have booths at the exhibition. The event will be divided into a system of halls, including tourism PR hall, travel information hall, tourism goods sales hall, knowledge exchange hall, PR hall, theme experience hall and international mega event PR hall. "In particular, visitors can enjoy events such as Korea's Yeosu EXPO, China's Shanghai EXPO and South Africa's World Cup at the international mega event PR hall, the first of its kind," Lim said. "As the international game exhibition, G-Star 2008 is to be held along with the 6th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart, visitors can enjoy the tourism fair and the game exhibition simultaneously." he said. In line with this, the organizers of the two international events plan to sell a ticket that will provide visitors with entrance to both events. "In a nutshell, the 6th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart will become to find information on visiting Gyeonggi Province and a chance to directly present the opportunities for tourism to visitors, and business opportunities for those working in the tourism industry" he said.

Korea part of a growing industry

To upgrade the Gyeonggi International Travel Mart to the biggest tourism exhibition in Asia, Gyeonggi Province and Gyeonggi Tourism Organization are making concerted efforts to make the event a tourism fair equipped with both publicity and revenue generation. "To this end, we plan to develop the World Street Food Festival into a fair in the Gyeonggi International Travel Mart in a bid to generate profits. At the same time, we will seek synergy by preparing institutional cooperation with such world-famous exhibitions as China International Travel Mart (CITM) and JATA world tourism fair of Japan," he said. The world tourism market has already grown in scale to see 700 million visitors and $600 billion in income generated in 2000. In 2010, this market is estimated to see one billion visitors and $760 billion in income generated. As the tour market grows, Korea hopes to attract more than 10 million foreign visitors. Moreover, owing to the introduction of a five-day working week, Korean people have started to have more spare time. This change in lifestyle has opened a whole new chapter for the tourism industry. "Under these conditions, the need to see local governments' active responses to tourism has grown. As a gateway to the North Pacific Ocean, Gyeonggi Province is a center of East Asian tourism and has a lot to offer in the way of sightseeing. With this background, Gyeonggi Province established a public tourism enterprise for the first time as a domestic local autonomous entity," he said. Lim added, "Created from this background, Gyeonggi Tourism Organization will continue to actively develop the potential of Gyeonggi Province to effectively cope with the changes in the domestic and foreign tourism industry."