The 11th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart (GITM) closes on November 10

The 11th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart (GITM) opened on the 8th at Ilsan KINTEX closed in success on November 10. The photograph shows the tape cutting in the opening ceremony. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News Heo Seon-ryang

The 11th Gyeonggi International Travel Mart (GITM), held for three days at Ilsan KINTEX from November 8 to 10 under the theme of Travel, the Beginning of Romance, closed in success on November 10.

This exhibition was hosted and supervised by Gyeonggi Province and Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, and 250 organizations and companies from 55 countries as well as 75,000 visitors attended the event.

The GITM solidified its position as Korea’s best mart-type expo worthy of its name, leading the occasion for actual exchange of products beyond a mere presentation of travel information.

A total of 70 companies (24 offline and 46 online) participated in the Job Festival booth that was implemented for the first time this year, conducting interviews and providing career consultations for over 1,200 job seekers for three days. Over 3,400 people submitted job applications online. Professional career consultants kept sat through the exhibition to provide all kinds of consulting services for employment, which received a great response from job seekers.

A totla of 56 companies including 11 travel agencies from 5 provinces of China, 10 travel agencies from Korea, 35 local governments and Gyeonggi tourism businesses participated in the business conference between the tourism industry and local governments, which was held for the first time in the history of Korean exhibitions, resulting in total 273 sessions of consultations. The participants considered this conference as the best program of the entire exhibition, showing interest in participating again next year.

Twelve companies including Korea’s largest travel agency Hanatour as well as Webtour, Kaltour and Ohmyhotel presented customized tour packages for domestic and overseas travel, which recorded over 1,300 consultations and KRW 500 million in sales. The Special Tour Package booth offered as much as 70% discounts for major accommodations for the first time in Korea such as forest lodges in Korea as well as resorts, luxury hotels and experience villages, recording sales results of 84 cases and KRW 5.3 million.

250 organizations and companies from 55 countries as well as 75,000 visitors attended the event. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News Heo Seon-ryang

Embassies of 55 countries participated in this event based on the theme of a three-day world culture travel, showing traditional costumes and foods in the ‘World Culture Festival.’ Ambassadors and their wives from 55 countries had a fashion show wearing hanbok (Korean traditional costume) and costumes of their home countries.

The traditional culture event hall provided new attractions and things to enjoy such as calligraphy writing visitors’ names in Arabic, henna that is India’s traditional tattoo, representative wines of Rumania, and Brazil’s traditional liquor cachaca, providing a place to exchange world culture.

The event also included various subsidiary events to be enjoyed by visitors such as the DMZ 60^th anniversary photo exhibition and leisure sports experiences.

In this year’s GITM, the daily average number of visitors increased by 34% compared to last year. It also showed 51% year-on-year increase in tour packages sales, special discounts of accommodations, and leisure sports equipment sales. The exhibition achieved the total sales of KRW 1.3 billion (last year KRW 940 million) during the period.

“Many visitors visited this exhibition to enjoy new tour packages in pace with consumer needs and trends as well as valuable business programs,” said Gyeonggi Tourism Organization president Hwang Jun-ki. “We will continue to develop tour packages and programs to follow the consumer trend by collaborating with the tourism industry, and create a more fruitful total mart-type travel expo.”

Embassies of 55 countries participated in this event based on the theme of a world culture travel, showing traditional costumes and foods. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News

ⓒGyeonggi G-News | Chun Kyeong-nam ckn0403@kg21.net

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