By Lee Sun-ho

The most thrilling international event in 2011 for me was the selection of Jeju Island as one of the New7Wonders (N7W) of Nature.

It came in a worldwide popularity poll followed by the exciting announcement of the provisional list of the seven winners led by Bernard Weber, president of the N7W Foundation in Zurich.

I volunteered to join the campaigns for Jeju’s entry onto the winners list with exceptional enthusiasm day in day out. I have proposed glocal (global+local) participation involving people on all continents.

I convinced everybody I met to vote for Jeju among the 28 finalists by phone call, text message or over the Internet.

This worldwide poll event has been closely associated with two numbers, seven and eleven. I figure quadruple lucky sevens in the campaign procedures: the number of final winners, the number of evaluation criteria, the official outcome announcement hour and its minute (7:07 p.m. on the so-called Pepero Day).

I assume the quintuple elevens for closing the N7W votes were worth-mentioning: at 11:11 a.m., Nov. 11, 2011.

Like a miracle, Jeju became one of the seven wonders among the prominent 452 rivals worldwide.

The N7W program drew a wide range of reactions. Some countries downplayed the contest. Some friends and blog readers stressed that UNESCO did not recognize this competition and anyone could unfairly vote a zillion times, especially for the advantage of IT-strong nations. Others questioned what could be the top N7W filtered by age, by location, by race.

Despite such arguments, Jeju deserves to be among the seven winners for its uniqueness of meeting the seven selection criteria, in addition to having both UNESCO world heritages and the Ramsar-chosen wetlands.

The main advantages for Korea’s honor in being selected as one of the N7W would be the national strength as one of the strong IT countries in the world as well as the super energies possessed by netizens vying for the entry of Jeju Island onto the N7W list against the other 27 finalists.

I believe the future of the N7W-listed Jeju should be made bright. It would and should become a tourist destination for foreign travelers.

The only special autonomous island province (since July 1, 2006) should reduce red tape in their campaign for promoting the beauty of the island.

Key infrastructure, such as a new international airport and additional accommodation to meet more visitors both domestic and foreign, needs to be expanded immediately.

All the natural and artificial legacies should be thoroughly maintained by full-fledged improvements aiming at the challenging days of Jeju’s prosperous future.

To upgrade Jeju’s worldwide N7W image, it is necessary to make the island’s unique but traditional elements into a glocal vision on this blue planet.

They are characterized as varieties of three distinguished features: destinations where three things are in abundance, namely, stones, wind and women; where the spirit of three nothings, front gates, thieves and beggars, are in non-existence; and finally where three treasures or beauties, peculiar local dialects, underwater resources and floral plants, are in preservation.

Bravo Jeju! Hurrah for Korea!

The writer is a member of the investment deliberation committee of the Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC) in Jeju City. His email address is kexim2@unitel.co.kr.