Gwangju City Supports Tourism Revitalization for Travel Agencies

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City has launched support measures to revitalize tourism for local travel agencies struggling due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

On the 21st, according to Gwangju City, the city decided to expand compensation support for attracting domestic and international tourists, and especially increased the compensation by 200,000 KRW for local travel agencies facing severe management crises.

An additional 200,000 KRW will be provided when using vehicles from local companies.

Also, travel agencies developing new Gwangju tourism products will receive up to 500,000 KRW in promotional expenses (once per company), and companies located in the Gwangju area will receive an additional 200,000 KRW, totaling 700,000 KRW in support.

Along with this, there are plans to focus on developing tourism content unique to Gwangju.

By the 19th, a public contest was held for local cooperative travel agencies, and plans are underway to develop Gwangju art tourism products linked with the 13th Gwangju Biennale, the 9th Gwangju Design Biennale, as well as Gwangju stay and experiential tourism products.

In this case, even if a local travel agency is selected as a Gwangju city cooperative travel agency, the compensation for attracting tourists from Gwangju City will be provided without duplication.

Online and offline promotions will also be conducted in preparation for the post-COVID-19 era.

To proactively respond to the rapid recovery of the local tourism market after COVID-19 and diversify the tourism market, differentiated promotions such as various marketing activities are planned.

Online, travel writers, power bloggers, and YouTubers will be utilized to cover Gwangju theme travel products and tourist courses, then promote them through social network services (SNS).

Offline, participation in tourism specialized fairs and Gwangju promotion booths will be used to introduce Gwangju travel destinations, and a photo zone featuring Gwangju cultural tourism character ‘Omaena’ inside the Namdo Tourism Center will be operated.

Kim Seong-bae, head of the Tourism Promotion Division of the city, said, “We plan to focus support on tourism companies so that the local tourism industry, which is in a management crisis, can recover quickly after COVID-19,” and added, “We will do our best to increase local tourism demand through online and offline promotional activities.”

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