Gwangju City Extends Tourist Attraction Incentive Support Period Until December

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 1st that it will extend the expanded support for incentives to attract domestic tourists, which was temporarily operated until October to revitalize the stagnant local tourism industry, until next month.

Earlier in May, Gwangju City had expanded incentives to attract tourists by temporarily increasing the support amount and adding new support items, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, travel agencies faced difficulties in attracting tourists.

Accordingly, from last month, with the transition to social distancing level 1 and the autumn peak season, the city decided to extend the expanded incentive support until next month to create an opportunity for domestic travel to be revitalized.

Looking at the incentive details, support is provided for transportation costs, accommodation fees, meal expenses, school trip expenses, promotional expenses, and early booking discount travel products.

For transportation costs, when attracting tourists using buses with 20 or more people, 500,000 to 1,200,000 KRW is paid, and when attracting tourists using trains or flights with 4 or more people, 20,000 to 30,000 KRW per person for transportation costs is supported.

When staying overnight, 10,000 KRW per person and about 10% of the meal cost per person are paid proportionally to the amount paid.

In addition, travel agencies developing Gwangju tourism products receive up to 500,000 KRW per company for promotional expenses up to three times, and travel agencies attracting school trip groups are paid 5,000 KRW per person for no overnight stay and 8,000 KRW per person for overnight stays.

Also, Gwangju tourism products selected for the early booking discount travel product support project hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and organized by the Korea Association of Travel Agents receive 10% of the project cost supported by Gwangju City.

Exact support details and application procedures can be found on the city’s website under notices and announcements.

Kim Jun-young, Director of the Culture, Tourism and Sports Office of the city, said, “We hope that the expanded support for domestic tourist incentives will help the early recovery of the Gwangju travel market,” adding, “Although the tourism industry has been greatly depressed due to COVID-19, we will continue to support the tourism industry so that it can pioneer new niches and compete with differentiated tourism marketing strategies.”

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