Municipalities jump to attract incentive tourists
Employees of Chinese company Aurance toast during a chicken and beer party on Wolmi Island in Incheon, on March 28. About 6,000 workers of the company came to Korea on an incentive tour. / Korea Times photo by Hong In-kee
By Kim Se-jeong
Chinese companies are a new target for Korea’s tourism industry, as they offer incentive tours for their high-performance employees.
As the number of tourists reaches up to several thousand at once, more and more provincial governments are seeking to attract them.
Incheon was the first this year to make headlines here for attracting more than 6,000 employees of a Chinese company called Aurance in March.
Aurance chose Incheon because many scenes of a popular Korean soap opera, “My Love from the Star,” starring Kim Soo-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun, were filmed there. The employees visited the filming spots and had chicken and beer at the beach, as the combination was featured in the drama.
This week, Seoul is hosting 1,000 employees of Prudential Singapore, who arrived on Saturday for almost a week-long stay. During their stay, they are scheduled to take part in a best K-pop dresser and dancer competition, as well as trying on hanbok (traditional Korean costume) at Bukchon Hanok Village.
In May, Seoul is also expecting 8,000 people from another Chinese company. They will come in two groups, 4,000 each, on May 5 and 9, visiting Dongdaemun, Gyeongbok Palace and Myeong-dong. They will stay at 15 hotels around the capital.
Incentive tourism has always been a part of tourism targets here, but local governments have begun paying more attention to them especially after the outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) dropped the number of visitors to Korea significantly, affecting regional economies.
To help boost the dwindling local tourism industry, provincial governments set out to China and other Asian countries to attract corporate tourists. The group of 8,000 Chinese who arrive next month was a result of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s promotional tour last year. Aurance also contacted Incheon after Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok returned from a promotional trip to China last year.
“Incentive tourists are a little bit different from ordinary tourists, because their spending is much bigger than ordinary tourists’,” said an official from Incheon Metropolitan Government.
Choi Kyung-eun from the Korean Culture and Tourism Institute said that the good thing about municipality-supported incentive tours is that tourists do not need to worry about being ripped off by low-quality tour agencies.
“Local tour agencies often attract Chinese tourists with cheap tour programs and low-quality food, which causes complaints from the tourists and damages the nation’s image,” Choi said. “With such incentive tours, visitors don’t have to worry about that.”
Also, with the rising number of incentive tourists, provincial governments now have a chance to promote themselves, according to Choi.
“Chinese tourists usually visit Seoul and Jeju Island, but with incentive tours, other regions have an opportunity to promote themselves,” she said.
But she warned of the competition among provinces getting too fierce, focusing on who attracts how many tourists.