Everland’s famous twin pandas become Korea's newest travel guides

Giant pandas Rui Bao and Hui Bao / Courtesy of Everland

Korea’s obsession with its resident giant pandas is moving out of the bamboo enclosures and onto the open road.

Everland, the country’s largest theme park, announced Wednesday the launch of “Rui & Hui’s Journey Across Korea,” an expansive, monthslong marketing campaign that aims to convert raw fandom into domestic tourism. The initiative centers on the park's beloved twin giant pandas, Rui Bao and Hui Bao, positioning the animals as fictional travel guides spearheading a nationwide tour of six distinct provinces. By blending regional storytelling with limited-edition merchandise, the project seeks to entice urbanites into exploring the country's lesser-known locales.

The introductory leg of the campaign strikes a deeply nostalgic chord for the twins' massive following.

The tour begins in Jeolla Province — the hometown of Kang Cheol-won, the veteran Everland zookeeper affectionately known by fans as "grandpa panda." Timed to capitalize on the summer vacation season, this opening chapter embraces the trend of "chonkangseu," a trendy Korean portmanteau that combines the word chon — which means "rural village" or "the countryside" — with "vacance," the French word for vacation. The narrative heavily draws inspiration from Gochang, a southwestern county celebrated for its pastoral scenery and seasonal watermelon harvest.

To anchor the campaign, Everland is rolling out a robust merchandising ecosystem.

An initial collection of roughly 30 limited-edition items will debut via a Naver Shopping Live broadcast before hitting the shelves at the park's physical retail outlets Thursday. The lineup features vacation-ready plush iterations of the twins: Rui Bao is outfitted in a miniature hoodie complete with a camera and backpack, while Hui Bao sports overalls and a travel hat. Grounded in traditional aesthetics, other items include watermelon-shaped cushions and hand fans depicting the pandas lounging on a maru, a classic Korean wooden porch.

For a tourism sector looking to revitalize regional economies, municipal planners are betting that a heavy dose of panda diplomacy is exactly what the provinces need.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.