SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean households’ overseas spending hit a record high in the first half of 2016 from a year earlier on increased outbound travel to neighboring countries, the central bank said Tuesday. South Korean households spent 13.6 trillion won (US$12 billion) overseas in the January-June period, up 10.7 percent from [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea will expand support for wellness tourism to attract health-conscious tourists across the world by combining it with unique local content such as beauty, oriental medicine, food and public saunas, the government said Wednesday. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism hosted the “International Forum on Wellness Tourism [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – A hanok village will be created in the eastern coastal city of Gangneung by October, next year, to promote the beauty of traditional Korean dwellings to foreign and local tourists, the government said Thursday. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it will construct a “hanok experience complex” composed [...]
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – Samsung Electronics Co. signed a business pact with the tourism board of Mexico’s Yucatan state to implement a project that will utilize the South Korean electronics giant’s virtual reality (VR) technologies to help develop the Mexican state’s tourism industry, the Mexican unit of Samsung said Monday. It marks [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – Hosting a global sporting event like the Olympics is a lucrative opportunity to attract thousands of overseas tourists, boosting the local economy, and promoting products and culture that might have otherwise been left unnoticed. However, language barriers can often be frustrating for tourists travelling to a foreign country, which [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – China may make the official claim that it will not take retaliatory measures against Korea for the recent decision to deploy a THAAD battery in Seongju, but those working in the local tourism industry agree that change is in the air. According to tourism industry officials, the number of Chinese [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – Nearly 6 million Chinese travelers visited South Korea last year, creating an economic ripple effect worth 27.66 trillion won (US$25.28 billion), up three times over the past four years, a report said Wednesday. A total of 5.98 million Chinese nationals visited South Korea in 2015, growing an average of [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – The “Moonlight Tour” at Changdeok Palace is reopening to the public on Aug. 15. This special night tour is an exclusive event, allowing visitors to stroll around the ancient palace of the Joseon Dynasty, which is normally only open during daytime. The tour takes two hours, during which participants [...]
SAMCHEOK, South Korea, Aug. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – How does a summer retreat at a cooling cave sound? Korea’s largest limestone cave, Hwanseon Cave, needs no air conditioning. Its temperature remains between 12 and 24 degrees Celsius all summer. Located in Samcheok, some 290km east of the capital, the cave first opened to the public [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of South Koreans going overseas for vacation jumped more than 40 percent on-year in July as more people flock to foreign destinations despite a prolonged slump in domestic demand, industry data showed Tuesday. Hana Tour Co., the nation’s leading tour agency, said the number of its clients [...]