Damyang Bamboo Festival Canceled Due to COVID-19 Impact

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yukbong] Damyang-gun, Jeollanam-do (Governor Choi Hyung-sik) announced on the 16th that it will cancel the '22nd Damyang Bamboo Festival,' which was scheduled to be held from April 30 to May 5, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and block its entry into the local community.

The Damyang Bamboo Festival is an eco-friendly festival held with bamboo as the theme, showcasing various programs that allow the entire nation to appreciate the diverse values of bamboo. From this year through next year, it has been selected as a cultural tourism festival.

The county hosts this representative tourist attraction event annually, drawing over 500,000 visitors, and this year had prepared various agriculture-related programs themed around realizing Damyang's agricultural culture intertwined with bamboo.

However, as the COVID-19 infectious disease crisis alert was recently raised to the highest level, the 'serious' stage, and the situation escalated into a global crisis, the county prioritized the safety of residents and tourists, held an emergency meeting with the festival promotion committee, and decided to cancel the festival.

Governor Choi Hyung-sik said, "Due to the nature of the festival, programs involving close contact among many people are inevitable, making it difficult to proceed with the event. We decided to cancel to participate in the national effort to quickly end COVID-19," adding, "We will devise various measures to revitalize the local economy so that the cancellation of the festival does not lead to economic contraction."

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