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On Our Radar: South Korea's Olympic vision

Andrew Doherty learns about plans to promote winter sports as Pyeongchang prepares to host the Winter Games in 2018 

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Another major tourism initiative is the new partnership between Korea and the tourist boards of China and Japan

Hosting the Olympics is one of the best ways for a destination to put itself in the global tourism shop window, as we saw during this summer’s Games in Rio de Janeiro.

 

The next destination in the Olympic queue will be the city and ski resort of Pyeongchang in South Korea, which will host the Winter Games in a mere 434 days (February 9-25, 2018).

 

Preparations appear to be going well, with organisers taking the world’s media on a tour around some of the 11 venues last month. Test events and training sessions are due to be held at these facilities in Pyeongchang over the next few months.

 

Promoting the country as a winter sports destination is clearly one of the priorities of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) over the next 18 months.

 

Min Hong Min, executive vice-president for international tourism at KTO, told TTG that the Olympics was a “great opportunity” to raise awareness of Korea’s winter activities, during his visit to WTM London last month.

 

“We have a number of great ski destinations in the north of the country and currently see huge tourism numbers arriving from the Asian market. Now we are looking to attract more visitors from Europe,” he added.

 

Indeed, this year looks to be a good one for the UK market to Korea, with arrival figures reaching 130,000 for the first nine months of 2016 – already surpassing the 120,000 British residents who visited in 2015.

 

Another major tourism initiative is the new partnership between Korea and the tourist boards of China and Japan, called Visit East Asia.

 

This aims to co-promote all three destinations in the UK and other European markets.

 

“We are looking to work with these destinations to put together packages that include all three countries,” said Min.

 

“The cooperation between the countries will be key for developing tourism in the region. This is important to us as we realise long-haul travellers, from western Europe specifically, want to take time to visit other Asian countries too. We know there is definitely a demand in the market.”

 

One factor that should improve travel in the region is the expected growth in low-cost airline routes in the run-up to the Olympics. Min said that visitors will be able to travel on high-speed KTX trains from Incheon International airport to Pyeongchang directly in just over an hour. This service is set to begin in July 2017.

 

“Incheon International airport is also looking to expand its capacity. We want to see the yearly amount of customers rise from 50 million to 70 million by next year,” added Min.

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