Damyang-gun Cancels the 22nd Damyang Bamboo Festival Due to COVID-19 Spread Concerns

Prioritizing Safety of Residents and Tourists Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Spread

Measures to Disperse Tourists in May and Thorough Disinfection of Tourist Sites

[Damyang=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Kim Chunsu] Due to COVID-19, the Damyang Bamboo Festival, a representative festival in May, has been canceled again this year following last year.

On the 16th, Damyang-gun, Jeollanam-do announced that it will cancel the "22nd Damyang Bamboo Festival," which was scheduled to be held for five days from May 1 to May 5, to block the spread of COVID-19 in the local community and to protect the health and safety of residents and tourists.

The Damyang Bamboo Festival is an eco-friendly festival held using bamboo as its theme, showcasing various programs that allow the entire nation to appreciate the diverse values of bamboo. It is a representative festival of Korea, attracting more than 500,000 visitors annually, and was designated as a cultural tourism festival until 2022.

The county had planned to hold the bamboo festival as a scaled-down, dispersed on-site event compared to previous years, monitoring the COVID-19 spread trend. However, after the third wave, with cases maintaining between 300 and 400 daily and sporadic silent transmissions with unidentified infection routes occurring, the decision was made to cancel the festival.

Nevertheless, even without the festival in May, many visitors are expected to visit Damyang’s representative tourist sites such as Juknokwon, Gwanbangjerim, and Meta Provence. Accordingly, the county plans to devise measures to disperse tourists and thoroughly disinfect major tourist spots.

County Governor Choi Hyungsik said, “It is regrettable that the festival has been canceled for two consecutive years, but due to the nature of the festival, close contact between people is inevitable, which poses a high risk of community infection, so we decided to cancel it. I hope COVID-19 ends soon so that daily life can return and we can enjoy the bamboo festival.”

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