Busan City Tourism Enterprise Support Center Plays Key Role as Hub for Growth and Innovation

Opened nationwide first in September 2019, Promoting Startup Support and Tourism Business Growth Support

Busan Tourism Enterprise Support Center (located in Yeongdo).

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] Busan City and Busan Tourism Organization announced that since its opening in 2019, the Busan Tourism Enterprise Support Center has established itself as a hub for supporting tourism startups and the innovative growth of tourism enterprises.

Selected through a public contest by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the 'Busan Tourism Enterprise Support Center,' which opened nationwide for the first time in September 2019, is promoting tourism startup support and tourism enterprise growth support to revitalize the Busan tourism ecosystem through ▲discovering and nurturing tourism startups ▲supporting the growth of local tourism enterprises ▲cultivating tourism talent ▲creating tourism jobs.

This year, the focus was on growth support for tourism enterprises to make a leap forward after COVID-19.

They supported domestic and international market development through operating the 'Busan Super' pop-up store in Seoul that sells Busan tourism products, crowdfunding, and social network service (SNS) support. They also responded to rapidly changing tourism trends by supporting digital transformation and business insight lectures to strengthen capabilities, and promoted tourism internships and digital youth tourism job support projects to provide direct jobs in tourism enterprises.

Operation of Busan University Student Tourism Startup Academy.

From December last year to November this year, to support the travel industry facing closure risks due to COVID-19, they operated five shared spaces provided to a total of 37 travel companies, and promoted capability-building projects such as rediscovering Busan and tourism content practice using social network services (SNS), supporting the response to tourism demand after COVID-19.

As a result of these efforts, looking at the achievements of the 120 nurtured companies at the Busan Tourism Enterprise Support Center this year, a total of 586 direct and indirect tourism jobs were created, and since its opening in 2019, a total of 1,527 jobs have been created over four years, contributing to the revitalization of the local economy despite the tourism industry's recession caused by COVID-19.

The total corporate sales reached approximately 55 billion KRW, with investment attraction of 5.27 billion KRW, showing a 126% increase compared to last year's sales (24.3 billion KRW). The companies also achieved a total of 169 awards and selections, demonstrating the center’s solid role as a startup support institution in the tourism sector.

Based on these operational achievements, the city received an 'Excellent' rating in the 2022 Regional Tourism Enterprise Center Performance Evaluation conducted by the Korea Tourism Organization, earning incentives and securing 1.1 billion KRW in national funding for 2023, following last year’s success.

Thus, since its opening in 2019, a total of 5 billion KRW in national funding has been secured.

In 2023, to lead the recovery of the tourism industry through more active enterprise support, the center plans to focus on ▲supporting domestic and international market expansion for enterprises ▲hosting the tourism enterprise B2B and B2G networking week ‘B Together Week’ ▲operating a digital communication channel ▲and holding the Busan-style regional specialized tourism content contest.

Yu Gyuwon, Director of the Tourism MICE Bureau of Busan City, said, “Although the tourism industry went through its toughest period due to COVID-19, the Busan Tourism Support Center has played a strong supporter role for tourism enterprises through space and commercialization support, education, and more. Since international tourism is expected to fully resume next year, we will make every effort to revitalize the tourism industry so that the previously disrupted tourism ecosystem can make a new leap forward.”

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