Tourism Organization Partners with BC Card and Hangyeolwon to Promote Mobile Easy Payment for Incoming Tourists

Business Agreement to Boost Consumption by Foreign Visitors to Korea

The Korea Tourism Organization (hereinafter KTO) announced on the 26th that it has signed a business agreement with BC Card (hereinafter BC) and the Korea Simple Payment Promotion Agency (hereinafter KSPPA) to promote mobile simple payment for foreign visitors to Korea.

President Kim Jang-sil of the Korea Tourism Organization (center), Chairman Choi Tong-ju of the Korea Easy Payment Promotion Agency (left), and CEO Choi Won-seok of BC Card (right) are holding the business agreement.
[Photo by Korea Tourism Organization]

Through this agreement, KTO will support the introduction of simple payment systems for shopping, transportation, accommodation, and more, enabling foreign tourists to conveniently use mobile payments during their travels in Korea, in collaboration with BC, which has a global payment network, and KSPPA, which operates domestic and international simple payment services such as WeChat and UnionPay.

The three organizations will promote mobile simple payments using KTO’s overseas offices and social media channels, and will carry out lucky money and coupon events.

In tourism hub cities such as Busan and Gangneung, pilot projects for the introduction of simple payments will be operated, and support for expanding simple payments among small business owners such as restaurants and traditional markets will be promoted to support the domestic industry through the activation of mobile simple payments.

Additionally, consumption patterns such as major spending areas and industries of foreign visitors accumulated through this marketing campaign will be analyzed to derive improvements for inbound tourism and marketing insights, and analysis and diagnosis will be supported for related industries and local governments.

Kim Jang-sil, President of the Korea Tourism Organization, stated, “This year marks a recovery period for foreign visitor demand and the start of the ‘2023-2024 Visit Korea Year’ campaign, so we plan to establish a foundation that can provide benefits for inbound tourism and actively promote it. We will strive to increase inbound tourism demand to revitalize domestic consumption, especially to support small business owners.”

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