Jo Incheol Proposes Bill to Expand Hometown Love Donation Return Gifts from Local Specialties to Experiences and Services

Jo Incheol

As concerns grow over the risk of regional depopulation and the need to expand "stay-type consumption," a new bill has been proposed to broaden the scope of return gifts under the Hometown Love Donation system to include local services and experiences.

On March 25, Jo Incheol, a member of the National Assembly representing Gwangju Seo-gu Gap from the Democratic Party of Korea, proposed an amendment to the Hometown Love Donation Act. The amendment aims to expand the scope of return gifts from the existing focus on physical goods to include local services and experiential programs.

The Hometown Love Donation system allows individuals to donate to local governments other than where they reside, and in return, the recipient local government provides a return gift. Currently, the main return gifts are agricultural, livestock, and marine products such as rice and Korean beef, as well as regional gift certificates. However, there have been concerns that these return gifts have limitations in directly encouraging people to visit the region.

The proposed amendment stipulates that local governments may offer not only region-specific agricultural, livestock, and marine products as return gifts to donors, but also "services" such as: ▲vouchers for public facilities and accommodations ▲regionally-specialized experience programs.

If the amendment passes, local governments will be able to offer vouchers for museums, art galleries, sports centers, and other regional cultural infrastructure, as well as experiential tourism and service programs that reflect the unique characteristics of each region, as return gifts. In particular, the amendment is significant in that it expands the Hometown Love Donation system from a simple fundraising tool to a "policy for cultivating relational populations" by encouraging visits and longer stays in the region.

The amendment is also expected to have a significant positive impact on revitalizing local economies.

Jo Incheol emphasized, "The key to balanced regional development is to increase the number of 'relational population' who may not reside in a given region but remain connected and spend time there. Through this amendment, I hope the Hometown Love Donation system will evolve from a mere donation platform to a system that encourages people to 'stay' in local areas."

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