Exemplary service businesses selected for Yeosu Expo visitors

By Lee Hyo-sik

With one year and six months remaining before the southwestern port city of Yeosu hosts the World Expo in May 2012, the organizing committee has launched a full-fledged campaign to attract a record number of visitors from both home and abroad.

The Organizing Committee for EXPO 2012 Yeosu Korea has designated 195 restaurants, 151 lodging facilities and 33 shopping centers in South Jeolla Province and South Gyeongsang Province as official business partners.

The designation is designed to draw more tourists during the three-month-long event by guaranteeing the quality of where they stay, and what they eat and buy.

Yeosu Expo aims to draw a total of 8 million visitors, including 550,000 foreigners.

The 379 businesses were selected out of 739 after undergoing a rigorous screening process. On top of a paper evaluation, officials from the committee and the Korea Management Association conducted an on-site inspection of the proposed businesses.

The organizing committee will provide the select businesses with financial and other support to help them conduct marketing activities and upgrade facilities. It also plans to constantly monitor the quality of services offered by the restaurants, lodging places and shops. If businesses are found to falter and start to offer inadequate services, they will be stripped of the designation.

“We applied stringent standards when selecting our business partners to enable Expo visitors to enjoy the best-quality food, accommodation and shopping experiences. We plan to add more restaurants, lodging facilities and shops to our list to better serve more guests,” said Kim Woo-joong, director of the committee’s tourism and accommodation division.