Suncheon City Aims to Become a Tourist Destination Enjoyed by Three Generations

Published 11 Jan.2024 15:09(KST)

25.86 Million Visitors in 2023

Suncheon Festival Branding and Revitalizing Local Areas through Regional Cooperation

Promoting Development of Multi-Generational Stay Tourism Content

According to the analysis by the Korea Tourism Data Lab of the Korea Tourism Organization, the number of visitors to Suncheon City, Jeollanam-do, from January to November last year was recorded at 25,866,958.

Suncheon showed the highest growth rate in Jeollanam-do with an 11% increase compared to the same period in 2022.

Korea Tourism Data Lab, Regional Tourism Status Visitor Analysis Table [Image provided by Suncheon City]

This is also a high growth rate ranking around 5th nationwide.

The data was analyzed by the Korea Tourism Data Lab using mobile carrier, credit card company, and navigation data to track visitors.

This is the effect of the 2023 Suncheonman International Garden Expo.

The main factor for the increase in visitors was analyzed to be the 2023 Suncheonman International Garden Expo, which was held for seven months from April to October.

Ocheon Green Plaza, created in an urban retention basin, and Green Island, a garden formed by covering asphalt roads with grass, played key roles as core hubs of the expo.

Ocheon Green Plaza attracted people with various performances and cultural events, while Green Island served as a connecting axis linking the previously disconnected garden and urban areas.

Additionally, events held in the city such as the Food and Art Festival, Cultural Street Art Festival, Nighttime Cultural Heritage Tour, and World Heritage Festival also drew many visitors.

After the expo, Suncheon is taking a bigger leap by dressing the garden in culture.

They are planning a differentiated Korean version of ‘K-Disney Suncheon’ by integrating the national garden, downtown, and Suncheon Bay into one garden with an animation industry overlay.

Furthermore, the city is establishing and promoting new tourism strategies in line with the Suncheon boom started by the expo.

This includes ‘healing tourism’ through ecological resources and ‘workation’ where people work and rest in the garden.

The city has secured a budget of 32 billion KRW for the southern region’s wide-area tourism development plan and plans to complete the mudflat healing platform by 2027, which is expected to serve as a hub for premium ecological tourism in the southern region.

Also, by utilizing facilities around the national garden, the city plans to promote a Suncheon-style workation where people can work and rest in the garden.

Workation is a method where workers perform their regular duties while enjoying leisure at vacation spots, expected to contribute to expanding the living population in an era of population decline.

They plan to maximize the ripple effect of the garden expo, which attracted 9.81 million visitors last year, to continuously increase the living population remaining in Suncheon.

They are also leading efforts to brand the Suncheon festival and revitalize the local community through regional cooperation.

By branding the image of a tourist city formed through the successful hosting of the garden expo, they plan to establish an integrated system for events and festivals.

They will activate festivals linked with AI and animation and introduce a complex convergence system that reorganizes festivals, previously scattered across departments, by timing, location, and theme.

Additionally, they will build a regional tourism network utilizing local content in cooperation with the private sector.

To strengthen capabilities for fostering a community-led tourism industry ecosystem, they will conduct training for tourism stakeholders, hold regular forums to discuss regional issues, and pilot local tourism content development projects planned directly by residents.

Meanwhile, the city is focusing on developing stay-type tourism content enjoyed by three generations.

They are also working to revitalize nighttime tourism to encourage tourists to stay longer.

They plan to create nighttime tourist attractions connecting the National Garden, Dongcheon Stream, and the old downtown area, establishing a light design system around Ocheon Green Plaza and Dongcheon to create key photo spots at each hub.

The smart tourism city construction project will also be promoted simultaneously.

They plan to provide customized tourism information and services using AI and attract drone light shows to create a city where three generations can enjoy and want to stay at night.

A city official said, “We will continue to do our best to discover tourism content unique to Suncheon City so that more tourists can stay and enjoy their visit.”