Gyeonggi Province convened a meeting of the 2008 Gyeonggi Festival Designation Committee on January 28. During this meeting, the top ten festivals with the potential to fully promote the local characteristics and identity of Gyeonggi Province and stimulate tourism were designated as the representative festivals of Gyeonggi Province for 2008.

The 2008 Gyeonggi Festival Designation Committee (Chair: Director Oh Soon-han of the Korea Culture & Tourism Research Center) selected five festivals as ‘ideal festivals’ for making the greatest contribution to Gyeonggi Province in terms of promoting tourism and the identity of the province. Included among these five festivals were the Namsadang Bawudeogi Festival of Anseong and the Suwon Hwaseong Culture Festival. The committee also selected five festivals as ‘good festivals’ with the potential to secure and intensively promote the unique cultural resources of each region. This category included the Siheung Gaetgol Festival and the Ansan International Street Performance Festival.

Prior to selecting these festivals, the committee reviewed the performance of each festival from previous years along with various festival plans for 2008. It evaluated unique local cultures, local identities, tourist-attracting performances, the effects of each festival on the local economy, and the willingness of cities and counties to comprehensively develop their festivals. In particular, the committee focused on selecting festivals that will fully reflect local characteristics and secure a level of competitiveness of which Gyeonggi Province can be proud.

To discover, foster, and support the local characteristics of Gyeonggi Province from a broad perspective, Gyeonggi Province plans to support intensive PR and product development activities for the representative festivals among the ‘Culture & Tourism Festivals’ designated by the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism in order to intensify national competitiveness in festival management.

Gyeonggi Province organized the Festival Evaluation Committee, which is comprised of festival experts from diversity of fields, to select the representative festivals. The screening process takes place in two stages, including an evaluation stage and a selection stage, to ensure fair and objective festival selection.

Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization will develop the competitiveness of the selected festivals and promote them as tourism festivals by providing financial support, expert consulting services, intensive online and offline PR, and tourism product development support. Experts will evaluate all selected festivals on-site to gauge overall festival management performance, and the evaluation results will be reflected in the screening process of representative festivals in 2009 to reinforce the festival evaluation system.

Gyeonggi Province expects that representative festival designation and support will stimulate constructive competition and improvement among the festivals in over 140 provinces, and allow festival visitors to enjoy festivals that offer better services and a higher level of competitiveness.