Tourism Organization and Seoul City Join Forces to Attract Large-Scale International Events

As Part of the K-MICE Development Strategy

The Korea Tourism Organization and the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 27th that they will sign a business agreement to attract medium to large-scale international events.

Exterior view of the Korea Tourism Organization headquarters. [Photo by Korea Tourism Organization]

The agreement was promoted as part of the K-MICE development strategy announced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the 25th, aiming to actively expand cooperation between the organization's overseas branches and Seoul city and to strengthen proactive MICE attraction activities.

Both organizations plan to cooperate organically from the initial discovery stage of international events to their attraction and hosting, aiming to revitalize tourism by comprehensively considering factors such as foreign tourist demand, event scale and impact, and city marketing effects.

The agreement mainly includes ▲discovering promising events for attraction and conducting on-site inspections and verification ▲linking international event support projects and securing support from related organizations ▲cooperation on local attraction marketing and domestic and international promotion.

Seoul city will analyze international event trends, secure a database of promising events, and establish attraction strategies. Additionally, starting this year, the scope of MICE support will include various types of events such as cultural arts and leisure sports events. Detailed information will be disclosed through the Seoul city website during the first half of the year.

The organization will conduct on-site inspections and verification by visiting the events prior to international events through its overseas branches located in Asia, North America, Europe, and other regions. If selected as a promising event for attraction, it will support consulting for attraction proposals and cooperate in securing venues. Furthermore, it plans to promote full-scale attraction marketing by holding overseas roadshows and contacting key personnel of related organizations using local networks.

The organization will also initiate reforms of the international event support system. It plans to introduce new indicators into the MICE support system, such as encouraging the shift of medium to large-scale international event hosts from government and public institutions to the private sector, and awarding additional points for convergence content like CrossFit, which is popular domestically and internationally, to expand the attraction of foreign tourists.

Jung Chang-wook, head of the MICE division at the Korea Tourism Organization, said, “We will do our best to establish tailored strategies with Seoul city and prepare systematic support measures to discover promising international events through our overseas branches and succeed in attracting them.”

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