Korea Tourism Organization and KOTRA Join Hands to Revitalize Tourism and Trade Investment

by Kim Heeyun

Published 27 Apr.2023 18:42(KST)

The Korea Tourism Organization (hereinafter referred to as the Organization) signed a business agreement with KOTRA on the 27th at the Culture Depot in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul to promote Korean tourism and trade investment.

Seo Young-chung, Director of the International Tourism Headquarters at Korea Tourism Organization (left), and Kim Tae-hyung, CEO of KOTRA Invest Korea (right), are holding a business agreement.
[Photo by Korea Tourism Organization]

The Organization, which promotes Korea as a tourist destination worldwide, and KOTRA, which promotes Korea as an investment destination, plan to carry out more effective promotional activities in tourism, trade, and investment sectors through this business agreement.

Both the Organization and KOTRA are public institutions with the largest overseas networks in Korea. KOTRA’s overseas offices are located in all 32 cities across 22 countries where the Organization’s overseas offices are present. The two institutions have previously pursued sporadic cooperation centered on their overseas offices, such as jointly hosting Korean tourism and consumer goods experience events. This business agreement formalizes cooperation between the institutions.

In particular, they plan to expand company-wide cooperation including △ promoting Korean tourism to overseas business officials participating in KOTRA events △ jointly hosting Korean cultural experience programs △ exchanging promotional content such as videos and publications.

Along with signing the agreement, the two institutions exchanged homepage banners. They will open the door to full-scale cooperation by operating a tourism program for overseas companies participating in Seoul Food at the end of May. In June, they will continue cooperation by jointly hosting offline promotions of Korean consumer goods in Malaysia and T?rkiye, supporting Korean cultural experiences for foreign-invested company officials, and plan to intensively promote Korea to global company executives participating in the Invest KOREA Summit scheduled for the fourth quarter.

Seo Young-chung, Director of the International Tourism Headquarters at the Organization, said, “Since COVID-19, as overseas travel costs have increased, there has been a rise in so-called bleisure (Business + Leisure) demand, where business travelers also engage in tourism activities during overseas business trips.” He added, “Business travelers are key decision-makers in their companies after their trips, and their positive experiences traveling in Korea are expected to have a triple effect of expanding tourism, trade, and investment.”