Tours of Blue House start to go inside

Visitors tour the Yeongbingwan State Guest House in the Blue House, in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Monday. [NEWS1]

The Blue House's Yeongbingwan State Guest House and Chunchugwan Press Center were partially opened to the public Monday.

In Yeongbingwan, the official venue for state dinners, visitors can learn about its history and the foreign dignitaries entertained there.

In Chunchugwan, visitors can see the briefing room in which government policies were announced.

From Monday, the Cultural Heritage Administration started managing parts of the Blue House opened to the public after the presidential office was moved to Yongsan District on May 10.

It's main jobs are confirming visitor reservations, planning cultural events, developing tours and audio commentaries explaining the history of the venues.

“In the future, the Blue House Public Relations Promotion Team of the Cultural Heritage Administration will come up with a rational preservation, management, and utilization program to make the Blue House a symbolic historical and cultural space of the country where history and the future can coexist,” said the Cultural Heritage Administration in a press release. “We will strive to establish the Blue House as a heritage site and a place returned to the people, its true owners."

From May 10 to May 22, 378,888 people visited the Blue House and more than 5 million signed up for visits. Until Monday, visitors could only see the outside of the buildings.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]