SEOUL/LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — KCON, the world’s largest Korean pop music and culture convention launched, has attracted more than 1 million fans over the past eight years, its organizer said Monday. According to CJ ENM, the organizer of KCON, the convention’s cumulative audience reached 1,069,000 over the weekend when the Korean wave, [...]
INCHEON, Aug. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The municipality of Incheon, west of Seoul, is planning to build a massive tourist complex in a hilly coastal area just west of Incheon International Airport after designating it as a free economic zone, officials said Friday. According to the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority, the new tourist complex, [...]
SEJONG, Jul. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — At a trade fair exhibiting Korean goods in Bangkok last month, whenever a customer came to the small booth where he was promoting beauty products, Jake Choi would use his smartphone to show them a video clip as part of his sales pitch. The three-minute video includes a scene [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent series of scandals and gossip involving Korean Wave stars has dealt a heavy blow to provincial governments trying to utilize their associations with entertainers to attract tourists. Most recently, the Taebaek city government in Gangwon Province became an unlikely victim when celebrity couple Song Joong-ki and Song [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — CJ Group companies are planning to build two massive cultural facilities themed after “hallyu,” or the Korean Wave of popular culture, just northwest of Seoul, company officials said Wednesday. CJ ENM, an entertainment and mass media giant owned by CJ Group, has agreed to build the cultural facilities covering [...]
TOKYO, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) — As K-pop band BTS’ latest hip hop song, “Dionysus,” hit the speakers at a small dance studio on a quiet backstreet of Shinjuku district in Tokyo one Saturday morning in May, a group of Japanese boys and girls swung their arms back and forth in sync with the music, [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean children’s song “Baby Shark” made history as part of the Korean Wave, or “hallyu,” by charting on Billboard’s most competitive Hot 100 list as the first non-pop Korean song. For the week of Feb. 2, “Baby Shark” came in 36th place on the Hot 100, stepping [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of dedicated global fans of “hallyu,” or the Korean Wave, is estimated to have surged to about 90 million at the end of last year, a government-affiliated foundation said Thursday. The Korea Foundation said in a report that there were 1,843 hallyu fan clubs in 113 countries [...]
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Mexico’s largest radio station will launch a weekly program featuring Korean culture and entertainment next month, the Korean Culture Center in Mexico City said Sunday. The “K-Hour” program of Radio Centro will air for one hour from 6 p.m. every Sunday. The radio station has been broadcasting a [...]
SEOUL, May 9 (Korea Bizwire) — eSports is making waves as a new front of “Hallyu”, the Korean wave of pop culture, and is being developed to attract international tourists to Seoul. The city government of Seoul revealed yesterday that it will operate a trial “eSports Tour Program” targeting foreign visitors, in efforts to expand [...]