Tourism events in provinces create 67,000 jobs

Over 67,000 new jobs were created last year from various regional tourism events.

According to the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry yesterday, a recent survey found that North Gyeongsang created the most amount of jobs with 17,650, followed by Gangwon, South Jeolla, South Gyeongsang, North Jeolla, North Chungcheong, South Chungcheong and Jeju. A total of 67,340 jobs were created by the tourism sector last year.

Of the 132 regional governments surveyed, 72 percent said regional tourism was a major factor in creating jobs, and 67.4 percent said the number of tourists they hosted was larger last year compared with the average year.

Also, regional governments felt that aggressive marketing was important for growth in regional tourism, as well as new events and festivals. They also credited new roads and public transportation, new hotels and city beautification campaigns.

The jobs created include tour guides, leisure facility owners and retailers. With the recovering economy, regional governments expect the number of tourists to rise, and 64.4 percent of those surveyed say that tourism related jobs will continue to grow.

“In the current slump that regional economies are going through, increasing regional tourism is very desirable,” said Park Jong-nam, an official from the chamber. “More attention and investments are needed to develop regional tourism focusing on more domestic and international tourists.”

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, 819,026 Chinese visitors came to Korea in the first half of the year, up 35.4 percent from the same period in the previous year.

A little over 4 million foreign tourists visited Korea in the first half of the year, up 9.2 percent from the year before.

By Jung Seung-hyun [seungjung@joongang.co.kr]