[Asia Exclusive] "From Air Passenger Services to Cultural Complexes Including Performances and Exhibitions"

Kim Kyung-wook, President of Incheon International Airport Corporation
"Various performances including K-pop and robots... Signing of art storage development project agreement"

Kim Kyung-wook, President of Incheon International Airport Corporation, is being interviewed by Asia Economy on the 30th. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Yeongjongdo (Incheon) = Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Incheon International Airport is not merely a space for boarding and disembarking airplanes. It is a complex space where shopping, represented by duty-free shops, and cultural performances such as the airport's ceremonial guard changing ceremony come together.

Kim Kyung-wook, President of Incheon International Airport Corporation, has planned to further expand these cultural and performance activities and link them to business to ensure the airport's continuous growth.

Currently, Incheon Airport Corporation is preparing various services to meet the increasing passenger demand due to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. One of these is the resumption of cultural and artistic performances.

Incheon Airport conducted about 3,500 cultural and artistic performances in 2019 under the motif of "an airport where culture and arts flow 365 days a year." It introduces Korean culture in various ways, including traditional culture, modern culture such as K-pop, and future technologies like robots as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These performances were temporarily suspended for the past two years due to COVID-19 but have resumed since early this year.

President Kim said, "At the beginning of this year, with the phased recovery of daily life and passenger recovery trends, we resumed previous cultural and artistic performances in the form of 'visiting performances.' We went to boarding gates where passengers are present and presented various performances, receiving great responses."

Recently, the airport has been conducting cultural and artistic planned exhibitions in collaboration with leading domestic cultural and artistic institutions, such as the "Korea International Art Fair (K-IAF)" and themed exhibitions on media and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). In particular, they are preparing ways to link these not just as simple performances but also with the corporation's business. By attracting excellent private companies and based on public-private cooperation, they aim to create the airport as a complex cultural space and generate new aviation demand.

Kim Kyung-wook, President of Incheon International Airport Corporation, is being interviewed by Asia Economy on the 30th. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

Additionally, they are working on revitalizing the economy by creating an airport-related industry ecosystem in the airport's hinterland. He explained, "This is a project to create an airport economic zone based on the creativity and vitality of the private sector, such as attracting private operators for the Smart Racing Park and private capital for art storage facilities."

In particular, the art business is a field that President Kim is looking forward to. Last month, Incheon Airport Corporation signed an implementation agreement for the development project of the Incheon Airport art storage facility with the Ars Hexa Consortium. The art storage facility is essential infrastructure for the art industry. It is a facility equipped with the best environment for protecting and storing artworks, such as temperature and humidity control.

President Kim emphasized, "If the storage facility business itself progresses actively, parts like auctions and exhibitions will be revitalized. Hong Kong is currently the core region for art distribution in Asia, and our goal is to capture its market share." He added, "Our goal is to elevate the airport's prestige and make it a must-visit place. If art auctions and exhibitions become active, related businesses will also emerge."

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