Korea Tourism Organization's YouTube channel reaches Gold Creator Award status

The Korea Tourism Organization's YouTube channel ″Imagine Your Korea" reached over 1 million subscribers on Tuesday. [KOREA TOURISM ORGANIZATION]

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) will be awarded YouTube's Gold Creator Award for reaching over a million subscribers on its YouTube channel “Imagine Your Korea” on Tuesday, making it the first country-level tourism organization to achieve such a feat.

This comes four years after the agency received YouTube’s Silver Creator Award in March 2020, which is given to channels that hit 100,000 subscribers.

The KTO is the first among the National Tourism Organizations (NTO), or country-level organizations created to foster and develop tourist activities, to achieve the golden certification.

Launched in June 2011, the KTO’s YouTube channel has uploaded 789 videos to date, featuring promotional content for Korea, which have received over 3.6 billion views cumulatively.

Its “Feel the Rhythm of Korea” series, which features Korea’s landmarks, were especially popular. In its “Feel the Rhythm of Korea: Seoul” video, the KTO collaborated with alternative pop band Leenalchi and the Ambiguous Dance Company to introduce Seoul attractions including the Blue House, Deoksu Palace and the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

“At a time when the competition to attract inbound tourism is increasingly becoming fiercer, the significance of achieving 1 million subscribers on our YouTube channel for the first time among the world's NTOs is not lost on us.” Yu Jin-ho, the head of the KTO’s tourism content strategy department, said.

“The agency plans to expand its potential fanbase this year by spreading the various charms of Korean tourism around the world on video, and will also do its best to achieve our goal of attracting 20 million inbound tourists in 2024,” he added.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]