Korea Tourism Organization, '2021 Korea Tourism Contest' Open to the Public

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dong-hyun] The Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 12th that it will hold the ‘2021 Korea Tourism Contest’ to discover excellent tourism souvenirs and tourism photos that come to mind when thinking of ‘Korea.’

This contest integrates the previously separately held annual ‘Tourism Souvenir Contest’ and ‘Tourism Photo Contest.’ It was prepared to support the related industries that have been stagnated due to COVID-19 and to actively promote travel after the recovery of the tourism market by discovering attractive tourism souvenirs and photos from various regions across the country. Citizen participation has been expanded, and new categories have been established.

The tourism souvenir category will be conducted under the theme ‘Rediscover Travel, Rediscover Korea.’ It calls for souvenirs finished products or ideas that can be commercialized, based on attractive content such as Korea’s history, culture, nature, tourist attractions, and food. The submission period is from June 9 to 15. This year, a special regional category (Daegu and Jeonnam) has been newly established to separately discover representative souvenirs from those regions. Through document, physical item, and presentation evaluations, a total of 12 works will be selected, including 10 in the general category and 2 in the regional special category. In particular, to actively incorporate public opinion, the number of general public judges has been greatly expanded to 100 (previously 15).

Prize money totaling 38 million KRW will be awarded differentially to the winners, and opportunities for one-on-one expert consulting, product development, and market expansion collaboration with related companies will be provided. Support will also be given for expanding online and offline sales channels and operating pop-up stores. The winning works will be actively promoted domestically and internationally through the production and distribution of promotional content such as souvenir introduction booklets.

The tourism photo category will be held under the theme ‘Beautiful Korean Flower Tourist Destinations in All Four Seasons (flowers, autumn leaves, trees, snow flowers, etc.).’ The contest categories have increased to three by adding a new video category reflecting recent trends, along with the existing general (digital) photos and smartphone photos. The submission period is from June 14 to July 2. Through three stages of evaluation?preliminary, semi-final, and final?a total of 228 works will be selected: 108 general photos and videos (75 photos, 33 videos) and 120 smartphone photos. Through this contest, the organization plans to discover content that meets recent tourism trends, such as contactless tourist destinations for safe travel, videos suitable for online media, and photos tailored for social networking services (SNS).

A total of 48 million KRW in prize money will be awarded differentially to the winners in the general photo and video categories. The smartphone photo category will award a total of 12 million KRW, with 3 million KRW for each season’s photo (spring, summer, autumn, winter). The winning works will be used as promotional content domestically and internationally through the organization’s ‘Online Photo Gallery’ and SNS channels.

Details on how to apply and more information can be found on the organization’s website.

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