By Yun Suh-young
The world’s largest private tourism organization will hold its SKAL 2012 World Congress in Korea for the first time, the organization said during a press briefing Tuesday.
Set for Oct. 2 to 7 in Seoul and Incheon, the event will bring together about 1,500 people in the tourism industry from all over the world to discuss tourism with a focus on eco-tourism.
“This will be an opportunity for Korea to promote the country as a tourist destination to professional tourism industry personnel. The hosting of the event in Korea this year is significant in that 2012 is the Visit Korea Year as well as the year in which the number of inbound tourists will reach 10 million,” said Robert Sohn, the chairman of the 73rd SKAL World Congress Organizing Committee (SWCOC).
“This is the first time the annual congress is ever being held in Korea in the history of SKAL.”
It will be the fourth nation in Asia to hold the congress. Previous hosts in the region were Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines.
Established in 1934, SKAL has about 20,000 members in 500 regional clubs in 90 different countries. The SKAL Seoul club was established in 1969 and the Incheon club in 2010.
The world congress is held every year in different cities to discuss ways in which the tourism industry can improve and build human networks with other tourism professionals. Members of SKAL see the congress as a platform to share their vision as well as expand business opportunities globally. Anyone in the tourism industry can become a member of SKAL if they register with it.
The organization expects the economic effect of hosting of the congress to be about 4.5 billion won.