Paradise City opens new facilities today

Chroma is the largest nightclub in Northeast Asia. / Courtesy of Paradise City

By Kang Seung-woo

• Published Sep 20, 2018 3:21 PM KST
• Updated Sep 20, 2018 7:00 PM KST

By Kang Seung-woo

INCHEON — Paradise City, the first integrated resort complex in Northeast Asia, is set to unveil the second phase of its facilities focusing on entertainment today, aimed at drawing in foreign tourists as well as locals.

Facilities from the second phase of its 330,000-square-meter development project include a boutique hotel, spa, nightclub, art gallery, shopping mall, film studio and indoor theme park. Paradise City opened a five-star luxury hotel and resort, casino and convention center in its first phase in April 2017.

Paradise City is a joint venture between Korea's Paradise Group and Japan's Sega Sammy Holdings. The 1.5 trillion won ($1.3 billion) resort is the size of 46 football stadiums.

“The second-batch of facilities are mainly focused on adding entertainment,” CEO Park Pyung-yong said in a press conference last week.

“Our differentiated tourism infrastructure and hallyu content could establish Paradise City as a landmark tourist destination of Korea.”

The biggest draw among the newly introduced amenities is Chroma, the largest nightclub in Northeast Asia, where clubbers can pick and choose from four different floors based on their taste and style. Especially, Sky Box Zone on the third floor offers a high-end service for VIP guests and Beach Club on the fourth floor enables clubbers to have pool parties all year round — the first such venue in Korea.

The K-Style Destination spa Cimer is another not to be missed.

It has combined European-style spas with Korean-style sauna “jjimjilbang.” The 13,000-square-meter indoor and outdoor amenities can accommodate up to 2,000 people at once. It also offers a variety of spa activity programs that are not widely available in Korea.

The luxury boutique hotel Art Paradiso, comprised of 58 rooms that come in four types, is the first property in Korea to provide only suite rooms.

Paradise City is pursuing the concept of what it calls “art-tainment,” combining the experience of viewing art along with various forms of entertainment.

The second-stage of development also features such items.

Paradise Art Space features permanent and special exhibitions that display art from internationally renowned artists.

Studio Paradise is an innovative multipurpose studio for movies, TV dramas and other professional uses.

At Plaza, visitors can shop, dine and enjoy cultural activities year around. The shopping arcade houses a duty free shop and other Korean stores that feature contemporary K-beauty and K-food products.

“As these facilities are balanced to cater to customers of all ages, they provide the setting as a true one-stop integrated resort for experiencing hallyu,” Park said.

Since its first-stage opening in April last year, Paradise City has attracted 1.2 million visitors — a solid achievement despite the sharp drop in Chinese tourists, according to its CEO.

The Chinese government suspended group tours to Korea in March last year in protest of the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula.

The number of Chinese tourists came to 410,337 in July, up 45.9 percent year-on-year, after Beijing partially lifted the ban later last year. However, the latest figure still falls short of the 917,519 tallied in July 2016.

Despite the lingering challenge, Paradise City believes it could put on a stronger performance this year by luring visitors from other neighboring countries.

“We are expecting to attract 4.8 million visitors a year, with a sales target set at 500 billion won,” General Manager Ahn Chang-wan said.

“We received rave reviews from Japanese tourists, while engaging in aggressive promotions in Southeast Asia, which we believe will bring more foreign tourists to Paradise City.”