A Premium Makgeolli Tour of Korea Online... Popular in Japan

Raw Makgeolli tasting virtual travel on-site footage. (Photo by Korea Tourism Organization)

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] Online travel products featuring Korean raw Makgeolli are gaining popularity in Japan.

The Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 25th that the "Limited Production Handcrafted Makgeolli Tasting Tour," jointly launched last month by the KTO Tokyo office, Ulsan-based brewery Boksundoga, and Japanese travel agency JALPAK, is attracting high interest. The program will hold its second tour on the 28th.

This online travel experience centers on visiting the fermentation room of Boksundoga, a representative brewery of Ulsan. Participants can vividly hear the actual sounds of Makgeolli fermenting and open and taste Boksundoga’s signature product, "Handcrafted Makgeolli," which is shipped directly from Ulsan, together with a Makgeolli sommelier. Despite being an online tour, it is praised for carefully satisfying participants' five senses. Participants of the first tour left comments via chat such as, "It felt like a brief trip to Korea," "Now I understand why Handcrafted Makgeolli is called Champagne Makgeolli," and "I want to visit Korea soon."

The price is 9,900 yen (approximately 110,000 KRW), which is relatively expensive compared to typical online travel products priced between 1,000 and 3,000 yen. This is because two bottles of the expensive Boksundoga raw Makgeolli are directly delivered to participants, and the tour includes live streaming from Ulsan and various sensory video productions. However, the tour, limited to 50 participants and launched at the end of July, was highly successful, attracting over 40 applicants immediately after recruitment began, prompting the urgent planning of this second tour.

Officials analyze that the product’s popularity results from a well-matched attempt to utilize Boksundoga’s branded products based on a deep understanding of the Japanese local market. Manami Honjo, Assistant Manager at JALPAK, who co-planned the product, said, "Drawing on our experience with online winery tours, we attempted a high-end program with the Korea Tourism Organization focusing on limited production premium Korean Makgeolli. We confirmed that it can impress customers who value quality experiences over cost." She added, "Once travel to Korea resumes, we plan to create a travel product that takes these participants to visit Boksundoga in Ulsan in person."

Jinsu Jeong, head of the KTO Tokyo office, stated, "This tour is meaningful as it plans and sells a win-win high value-added tourism product linking high-end local specialty products from regional SMEs during the COVID-19 period." He added, "We will continue to try various specialized online tours that promote coexistence with SMEs, such as personalized cosmetics tours."

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