9 out of 10 Office Workers Want to Do a Workation Where They Can Play While Working

KCCI Survey of 1,112 Office Workers

Nine out of ten office workers prefer workations, which allow them to enjoy vacations while working.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry conducted a survey on workations targeting 1,112 office workers over two months starting in October, revealing that 90% of respondents wish to participate in workations. The reasons for preferring workations were answered in the order of "improved work efficiency" (47.35%), "rest" (47.25%), and "tourism" (3.4%). This indicates that flexible adjustments to workspaces and hours, as well as balancing work, family, and rest, can simultaneously enhance work efficiency and quality of life.

When asked why they do not prefer workations, respondents cited "tasks difficult to handle remotely" (58.6%), "communication with collaborating colleagues" (50.5%), "cost burdens such as leisure expenses" (25.2%), "difficulty in adapting to remote work independently" (22.5%), "company organizational culture" (20.7%), and "accompanying family members" (18.9%).

Workation in Namhae Region
[Image Source=Korea Tourism Organization]

A CEO of a small-to-medium enterprise who first introduced remote work during the COVID-19 period said, "There were many difficulties, including work efficiency issues and the challenge of properly setting up systems like video conferencing." He added, "While I understand the purpose of workations, for most small and medium enterprises that are not large corporations or IT companies, it is difficult to implement without government support."

Only 19.9% of respondents reported having actually experienced a workation. Among them, the most common participation was through "personal choice due to remote work" (62.0%), followed by "company provision" (24.0%) and "local government program participation support" (8.1%). Regarding job satisfaction during workations, responses were "very satisfied" (39.8%), "satisfied" (39.4%), "neutral" (13.1%), "dissatisfied" (6.3%), and "very dissatisfied" (1.4%).

A worker named A, who recently did a workation in Jeju, said, "Before trying it, I was worried about my concentration on work, but staying by the seaside, enjoying beautiful scenery and healing, and working intensively when needed actually improved my work efficiency." He added, "Workation allowed me to legitimately catch two rabbits: work and recharging."

Among the 17 metropolitan cities and provinces, Jeju was the most preferred workation destination (31.8%). It was followed by Gangwon (19.5%), Seoul (18.8%), Busan (14.2%), and Gyeonggi (6.2%). Among workation types, the "resort type (regional stay type)," where people work in resorts such as mountains or seaside and rest after work, was the most preferred (74.9%). The "urban type," which involves enjoying hotel amenities in the city, accounted for 21.2%, and the "rural/traditional experience type," which combines various rural experiences, was 3.5%. The preferred duration for workations was mostly "1-2 weeks" (49.8%), followed by "less than 1 week" (21.9%), "3-4 weeks" (21.0%), and "5 weeks or more" (7.3%).

The Ideal Workation for Office Workers [Image Source=KCCI]

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is promoting nationwide activation of workations by implementing pilot projects as a follow-up to the "Local Era Regional Cultural Policy Promotion Strategy" announced last March.

Yuilho, head of the Employment and Labor Policy Team at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, "The new work culture of workations can create new value for local economies by revitalizing regional tourism and attracting living populations." He added, "Recently, local governments have been competitively providing various supports for workations to attract companies, so interested companies can utilize these supports to generate synergy."

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