By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff reporter
More tour guidebooks are turning their eyes to Seoul, giving tourists more resources to enjoy the city once they have chosen Seoul as their travel destination.
Previously, there were only three guidebooks specializing in the city of Seoul ― the famous "Lonely Planet Seoul" and "Wallpaper City Guide Seoul" and 'Seoul' by Robert Kohler.
In May, Canadian guidebook "Book of Everything" released its Seoul edition. The series, famous for covering 14 Canadian tourist attractions, chose Seoul as the first international destination.
The "Seoul Book of Everything" introduces Seoul's main tourist sites including old palaces, hanok (traditional Korean houses), night markets, Seoul N Tower and much more. It also lists the five "must do" things in Korea, such as the foods to eat, the phrases to know and the television dramas to watch.
In China, a travel book about Seoul titled "Traveling Seoul with Hallyu (Korean Wave) Dramas" was published in February. As the title indicates, the book gives a tour of Seoul by highlighting the filming spots of the Korean dramas that were popular with the Chinese.
More tourist guides on Seoul are on their way.
The Thames & Hudson in England will release "Style City Seoul" in September. "For the Style City we recommended places to take pictures of Seoul's stylish and luxurious spots at their request," Kim Hee-sun of Seoul's Tourism Promotion Division said.
The publisher sets up a concept or outlines the content of a guidebook roughly in advance and the writers stay in the city for more than a month to collect information about the city.
"Cartoville," a French tour guidebook series and the "Rough Guide" of England also plan to publish a Seoul edition next year.
In addition to supporting publishing new guidebooks on Seoul, the city also follows up on existing ones.
"For instance, we helped to update the 'Lonely Planet Seoul' with more recent information. The series publishes revised editions every two to three years and we provided details regarding changes in prices and etc." Kim said.
"For international tourists, tourist guides written by professional travel writers are more influential than the travel brochures prepared by governments," Kim said. "These guides on Seoul will help to attract more volunteer travelers to the city as well as enhance trips for business travelers."