Gangjin-gun Records Record High of 2.56 Million Tourists Last Year

Exterior view of Gangjin-gun Office (Photo by Gangjin-gun)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Gangjin-gun, Jeollanam-do announced on the 5th that the number of tourists visiting Gangjin last year reached an all-time high of 2.56 million.

This figure surpasses the previous record of 2.44 million set in 2018.

The county estimated that an average of 7,013 people visited Gangjin daily, and based on a daily spending of 48,000 KRW per tourist, tourism revenue reached 122.8 billion KRW.

This achievement is significant as it was accomplished amid a domestic tourism industry downturn due to economic recession and a decrease in tourists in other local governments.

Gangjin-gun focused administrative efforts on expanding group and individual tourist attraction and developing new tourism content to transform into a "stay-and-enjoy" tourist destination, which was effective in increasing the number of tourists.

First, Gaudo Island revitalized the operation of existing marine leisure facilities such as zip tracks and jet boats, and worked on expanding nighttime scenery and providing convenience facilities and attractions for tourists.

Along with this, Gangjin enhanced its comprehensive capabilities to transform into a stay-and-enjoy tourist destination by discovering food attractions such as the creation of the "Byeongyeong Pork Bulgogi Street" using excellent local ingredients from Gangjin Mountain and fostering 50 Gangjin restaurants.

The success of the reenactment performance content "Jomangan (Time Meeting Joseon) Project," which highlights Gangjin's history and figures, is particularly noteworthy. Jomangan allowed tourists to participate in traditional yard plays, naturally gaining information and lessons about Gangjin, making it a differentiated tourism content that satisfied both fun and educational aspects and gained great popularity.

On October 1st last year, Dasan BeaChe Golf & Resort in Doam-myeon, Gangjin-gun opened, signaling a green light for securing stay-type tourism infrastructure.

Dasan BeaChe Golf & Resort has a total of 52 rooms and is expected to play a significant role in promoting Gangjin, the center of marine tourism on the southwestern coast, nationwide by linking with nearby tourist resources such as Dasan Chodang and Baekryeonsa Temple.

Additionally, Gangjin-gun is activating experiential tourism by systematizing hygiene, cleanliness, bedding management, and friendly service at farms operating pusocheheom (traditional Korean farmhouse stay) experiences, which have established themselves as stay-type tourism content, and conducting capacity-building education for pusoche farms.

In particular, on the morning of the 21st at Lotte Hotel in Seoul, an event will be held to commemorate breaking the record for the highest number of tourists and to declare 2020 as the "first year of the era of 5 million tourists." This event will announce the future vision and value of Gangjin's tourism industry externally and will include introductions of tourism content and attractions as well as business agreements.

County Governor Lee Seung-ok said, "We plan to make Gangjin a place people want to visit again through the development of stay-type tourism resources and a place where visitors become happier the more they visit through high-quality tourism services," adding, "Since 2020 is the first year of the era of 5 million tourists in Gangjin-gun, we will make every effort to increase the number of visitors."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.