Jung Da-hyun is a reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues in Korea, including foreign residents, education, environment and politics. Driven by a deep interest in people’s stories, she focuses on investigative and feature reporting through direct interviews and field coverage. She received the Amnesty International Korea Media Award for her “Deepfake Crisis at Schools” series. Reach her at dahyun08@koreatimes.co.kr. Always open to hearing your stories.
Seoul allocates $6.7 mil. to boost MICE industry
Tourists gather at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul for Seoul Light event, which showcases various attractions and media facade show through light, Sept. 10, 2023. Yonhap
By Jung Da-hyun
The Seoul city government will allocate 90 billion won ($6.74 million) to bolster the city's MICE industry, it said Wednesday.
MICE refers to the meeting, incentive travel, convention, exhibition and event sectors.
This marks a notable 16.8 percent increase from last year's budget of 7.7 billion won.
With this augmented budget, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to foster representative exhibitions and international conferences held regularly in Seoul, akin to events like CES in Las Vegas and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Including the revitalization of MICE industries, the initiative also seeks to stimulate the tourism market, combining business and leisure.
The city aspires to attract 1.2 million tourists this year through these efforts.
As part of the initiative, the city will focus on attracting medium and large-sized events with over 3,000 participants, including 1,000 foreigners or events related to Seoul's five core industries: artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, fintech and the creative sector, including beauty, fashion, extended reality, video games, movies and webtoons.
Specifically, the city plans to allocate up to 280 million won per event to attract 30 medium and large international conferences related to bio and advanced technology, including the General Assembly of the International Congress and Convention Association scheduled for 2025.
Furthermore, the city will select 33 exhibitions and four Seoul-based international conferences to provide professional consulting and funding of up to 80 million won.
Efforts to attract corporate meetings and incentive tourism organizations, which have been mainly targeted at Chinese organizations, will expand to new markets like Southeast Asia and India.
Subsidies for attracting foreign tourists through the Seoul Tourism Organization will be tailored based on the number of foreigners and their duration of stay.
Detailed information on MICE support by sector will be provided on the official Seoul MICE website.
"We are determined to enhance support measures to achieve the goal of attracting 1.2 million MICE tourists this year and to foster the growth of related industries," said Kim Young-hwan, the director general of the Tourism and Sports Bureau at the city government.