Yongin, Inje, Tongyeong Selected as 'Smart Tourism Cities'

Implemented Smart Tourism Elements with 4.5 Billion KRW in National Funding Support

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 6th that Yongin City, Inje County, and Tongyeong City have been selected as this year's 'Smart Tourism Cities.'

Smart Tourism Cities are projects that organically combine tourism service technology and tourist destinations to foster development. The selection of target areas is based on a comprehensive evaluation of distinctive tourism attractions, the composition that maximizes these attractions, the appropriateness of the project theme, detailed project plans, and sustainability. Selected local governments receive up to 4.5 billion KRW in national funding over three years (with local government matching funds at least 1:1) to implement smart tourism elements specialized for their regions.

Yongin City, selected as a tourism attraction type, will develop the area around Gyeonggi Museum Park (including the Nam June Paik Art Center, Gyeonggi Provincial Museum, and Gyeonggi Children's Museum) into a 'Smart Art Road.' Activities will include media exhibition experiences, media facade performances, and interactive busking shows. Smart mobility technologies, such as shuttles aligned with tourist routes, will also be actively utilized.

Inje County will transform its exotic birch forests into spaces for rest and healing. It will introduce personalized forest path curation that suggests optimal walking routes based on individual preferences and health conditions, and operate a digital literary guide that allows visitors to immerse themselves in contemplation while listening to literary works. Various nighttime programs, including lighting media shows and constellation projections, will also be developed.

Tongyeong City will build a platform encompassing personalized travel course recommendations, passenger ship location tracking, weather, tourism, and traffic information provision, as well as island restaurant reservations. Night tourism content will be expanded with immersive extended reality (XR) observatories covering Tongyeong's past and present, and nighttime scenic alleyways.

An official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism stated, "Smart Tourism Cities are game changers that will determine the future direction of regional tourism," and added, "We hope the selected tourist destinations will be etched as bucket list items of K-tourism."

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