Haeundae Beach in South Korea’s southeastern city of Busan is crowded with vacationers on Aug. 16, 2020. (Yonhap)
BUSAN, July 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Controversy over exaggeration by beaches on the number of visitors they welcome has prompted the government to set up guidelines for counting visitors.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced Monday that a research project to set up guidelines for counting beach visitors is currently underway, led by the Korea Maritime Institute.
The research project, which ends in October, is expected to integrate different sets of guidelines that were used throughout each local government and agency to count beach visitors.
Once the guidelines are published, the ministry plans to ask each local government and agency to use the guidelines for counting beach visitors.
The ministry deemed that local governments have been overstating the number of beach visitors as they competed with each other following the end of social distancing measures, and asked them to provide accurate numbers.
Beaches typically do not have a single entrance and do not require tickets for access, which makes it harder to count the number of visitors.
Once the research is complete, the ministry plans to accommodate views from local governments, distribute the finalized guidelines, enforce visitor counting based on the guidelines and use the data in various maritime policies.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
