Taiwanese tourists to visit Jeju, without disembarking from plane

An official poster to promote no-landing travel to Jeju Island from Taiwan. [KOREA TOURISM ORGANIZATION]

International travel is limited, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get on a plane. To keep the attention of avid travelers in Taiwan, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) is bringing them to Jeju without having them get off the plane.

About 120 people will board a plane from the Taipei airport on Saturday to just fly around the air space of Jeju Island without landing, before returning home. Those who take the trip will earn round-trip flight tickets to use for one year from the point that leisure travel between Taiwan and Korea resumes and other perks for future use. The package, released on Sept. 11, sold out within four minutes.

As this package is aimed at getting locals in Taiwan excited about their future travels, many different entertainment programs will be offered in flight. They will get to take pictures wearing hanbok, traditional Korean garments, before departure, and will be served the famous chimaek, a combination of fried chicken and beer as an in-flight meal.

The state-run tourism company learned that enthusiasm for packages that enable a vicarious in-flight experience is gaining popularity in Taiwan, during a local expo held in Taipei last month, and decided to make such a program with Taiwan’s travel agency ezfly as well as with Tigerair. About 71 percent of 518 people who visited the Korea booth during the expo answered that Korea is the first country they would visit when the pandemic dies down.

To continue to discover ways to keep the attention of foreign travelers, the state-run tourism organization along with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, is encouraging people to share their favorite travel spots where foreign travelers might also be interested in visiting.

Any Koreans or foreign nationals currently residing in Korea over the age of 15 can pitch their favorite spots in Korea either via videos that are less than three minutes long or in written form. People are also being encouraged to share courses that are suitable for a day trip or an overnight trip and should provide a map with routes.

The Culture Ministry and the tourism organization will accept videos until Oct. 14, and courses from Sept. 21 to Oct. 21. More details are available at blog.naver.com/zzintravelforyou. Those who pitch the two best videos and two best routes will win 5 million won ($4,300) for each video and 2 million won for each course. Another 101 entries will also receive prizes.

BY LEE SUN-MIN [summerlee@joongang.co.kr]