The province introduces its representative provincial tour sites through Shandong TV
Targets female Japanese tourists with shopping, beauty, and makgeolli (rice wine)

 With the goal of attracting 10,000 tourists from central China by the second half of 2012, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization plans to invite local broadcasting stations to film Gyeonggi Province’s representative tourism sites. The organization also plans to invite Japanese female tourists. (Photo) Chinese tourists who visited Gyeonggi Province. (G-News Plus)

Gyeonggi Province and Gyeonggi Tourism Organization begin to attract Chinese and Japanese tourists.

In order to attract 10,000 tourists from central China by the second half of 2012, the province plans to invite local broadcasting stations to film the representative tourism sites of Gyeonggi Province. The province will also conduct field marketing to attract female tourists from Japan.

First, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organizationdeveloped a Korea-China combination product – 1 night in Qingdao, China, and 2 or 3 nights in Gyeonggi Province including accommodation and in-province tour sites – by interfacing with in-province accommodation products to attract tourists from China including the regions of Henan, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Chinghai, and Shandong. The organization began marketing the product in the middle of November through local Chinese tour companies. The product is immensely popular with approximately 4,000 inquiries having been received in the month since its launch.

The organization also invited Shandong and Qingdao TV crews to visit Gyeonggi from December 27^th to 30^th and film the itinerary of the 3-night, 4-day Gyeonggi Province tour product for the creation of a special program, which is scheduled to air in China early in 2012.

A representative of the organization explained, “This shoot was planned to create demand to visit Gyeonggi Province among inland Chinese tourists and actively target Shandong Province, an area from which some 140,000 tourists have visited Korea.” He added, “We plan to launch an accommodation product that combines Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea and the Gyeonggi Province tour schedule in the second half of 2012. We expect this product to stimulate further demand for Gyeonggi tourism.”

During their visit to Korea, the Shandong and Qingdao TV crews will film representative tour sites of the province including Paju Skin Anniversary, Lotte Premium Outlet Paju, Shinsegae Chelsea Premium Outlet, and Provence in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province, as well as Everland Resort, Yangji Pine Resort, the Korean Folk Village, and Yongin MBC Dramia in southern part of Gyeonggi Province.

In addition to targeting the inland Chinese market, the organization will strive to attract 10,000 Japanese tourists equipped with strong purchasing power. The organization revealed on December 27^th that it will co-develop shopping, beauty and food experience products that are suitable for Japanese women with the largest tour company of Japan, and begin sales and marketing in the first half of next year.

The organization explained that its decision to focus on tourism products for women was a result of the rapid increase in the number of women among recent Japanese tourists. Last year, more Japanese women visited Korea than men, with the ratio of free independent travel (FIT) exceeding 77%.

The organization predicts that Japan will overcome the recession caused by last year’s earthquake and that the number of Japanese tourists visiting Korea will increase. Hence, the organization began focusing on co-developing tour products with Japan’s largest tour company, Japan JTB World Vacations, in October of 2011.

As a result, the organization has developed a shopping-beauty product that connects Japanese women tourists with Lotte Premium Outlet, Skin Anniversary, and Provence in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province. In addition, given that makgeolli (rice wine) has recently gained considerable popularity in Japan, the organization has developed a range of food experience products includingmakgeolli making and tofu making in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province.

The organization will combine these newly developed shopping, beauty, and food experience products into a single package and begin attracting tourists from 2012 until 2013 from all regions of Japan.

Gyeonggi Tourism Organization CEO Hwang Jun-gi said, “We’ll present an image of Gyeonggi Province as a ‘charming shopping, beauty, and food tourism destination’ to Japanese tourists with this product.” He added, “We’ll also develop sites that are renowned for their shopping, beauty, and food products and create specialized ‘high additional value Gyeonggi Province products.'”

-G-News Plus News | Nam Gyeong-u echo2008@kg21.net

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