Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Korea, China, Japan team up to attract tourists from other regions
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yu In-chon, left, poses with Japan's Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Tourism Tetsuo Saito, center, and China's Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Zhang Zheng during a welcome banquet ahead of a ministerial meeting on tourism in Kobe, Japan, Tuesday. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
Korea, China, and Japan will collaborate to foster balanced and qualitative growth in their tourism industries, aiming to achieve 40 million annual exchanges between the three countries by 2030, according to senior government officials, Wednesday.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yu In-chon, Japan's Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Tourism Tetsuo Saito and China's Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Zhang Zheng held the 10th Korea-China-Japan Tourism ministerial meeting in Kobe, Japan, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
This was the first time the three countries held a ministerial meeting on tourism since the ninth meeting took place in Incheon in August 2019. In the meantime, there had been no meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the meeting, the three ministers discussed ways to cooperate in improving the quality of tourism, including the rapid post-pandemic recovery of tourism exchanges, the importance of sustainable tourism and the revitalization of local tourism.
They also adopted a declaration that set a common goal of increasing human exchanges between the three countries from the current level of 30 million to 40 million by 2030.
When the first tourism ministerial meeting took place in 2008, the number of exchanges between the three countries stood around 13 million, which exceeded 30 million 10 years later in 2018.
The 40 million goal of the three countries' human exchanges was also included in the joint declaration of the 9th Korea-China-Japan Summit, which was adopted by the leaders of the three countries in Seoul in May, and detailed cooperation measures were sought through this ministerial meeting.
“It is meaningful that the joint declaration contains details of the three countries' implementation of cooperation such as counseling sessions and seminars to promote joint tourism products to attract long-distance tourists from further abroad,” Yoo said.
In addition to discussing the implementation of immigration convenience and expanding future generation and regional exchanges, Yu discussed balanced growth of tourism exchanges with the Japanese government while discussing with the Chinese government ways to cooperate and crack down on low-cost shopping tours in Korea.
“All three countries have a common task of tackling low birthrates and regional extinction, and they should make all-out efforts to promote regional tourism to solve these national challenges,” Yu said, adding that the government will seek balanced growth by expanding exchanges with provincial cities.