K-Travel Week In UAE

1. What is the purpose and content of the K-Travel Week in UAE event?

○ In May, the Korea Tourism Organization is holding K-Travel Week (5.1-5.6) in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, as part of the "Korea-Middle East Shuttle Economic Cooperation" project to spread economic and diplomatic achievements between the Yoon Suk Yeoln president and UAE leaders to the tourism sector.

○ Starting with the Arabian Travel Market (5.1-5.4), the largest tourism fair in the Middle East, the K-tourist start-up IR and business agreement with the Abu Dhabi Investment Agency, a business agreement with the Abu Dhabi Convention Bureau, 100 local tourism companies, and K-tourism centers will be introduced.

○ In particular, 19 startups will participate in the first K-Tourist Startup IR in the Middle East to support the globalization of domestic tourism companies in earnest, focusing their efforts on tech-based tourism startups entering the Middle East.

2. What is the purpose of participating in ATM in 2023 and what do you want to promote?

○ The operation of the ATM Korea Tourism Promotion Center in 2023 plans to make the most of the advantages of the B2B-centered international tourism fair as a priority to rebuild the network between the local and domestic industries that collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

○ A total of 26 institutions, including Middle East inbound travel agencies, local governments, medical industries, and tourism venture companies, will participate in the fair to promote Korean tourism in each field along with expanding networks with local related industries.

○ This year, "2023-2024 Visit Korea Year" was declared to take another leap forward in Korean tourism after COVID-19, and as its first project, the "100 K-Culture Tourism Events" selected by collecting festivals and events that tourists can enjoy throughout the year are waiting for foreigners. In particular, the 2030 Busan World Expo, which the Korean government and the people are hoping for, will be decided at the end of this year. We would like to promote this intensively within the public relations center.

○ The 2023 ATM Korea Tourism Promotion Hall consists of a design concept that modernly reinterprets the K-culture and enterprising Panokseon through traditional hanok eaves and windows to announce a new leap forward in Korean tourism.

3. What are the main promotional contents of the K-Tourist Roadshow?

Korea's "rest" space has also been set up.

○ Under the slogan "To KOREA where K-Culture Begins," a K-tourist road show will be held at the Festival City Mall, a large shopping mall in Dubai, for two days from 5.5 to 5.6 to experience K-culture in various fields.

○ In this road show, there are various programs to experience Korean food and hanbok, beauty and unique jjimjilbang experiences, as well as movie screenings with families.

○ In particular, K-pop group MCND invited from Korea, Seodo Band, which shows a collaboration between traditional and popular music, and random play dance events by YouTuber Toekyung, known for random play dance, are expected to be a good opportunity to experience the original Korean Wave in the UAE.

4. What is the Korea Tourism Organization's plan to attract tourists to the Middle East?

○ The Middle East is less than 1% of foreign tourists visiting Korea, but the average per person spending is about USD 1,700, 27% higher than the average of USD 1,240, and 3.8 days more than the average of 6.7 days.

○ In particular, it is noteworthy that the proportion of people under the age of 54 who can travel, including the MZ generation, a major demand for the Korean Wave in the Middle East and a potential demand for Korea in the future. In Saudi Arabia, the largest market for GCC, about 89% of the total population is under 54 years old, and the average median age is 32.2 years (as of Korea 45 years old/22), making it a market with sufficient potential as a new market for visiting Korea in the future.

○ Accordingly, our corporation plans to analyze the characteristics of Middle East outbound and establish three strategies for the Middle East visiting market. The first is targeting the luxury winter market for local women in the Middle East. As can be seen from the average expenditure and stay date of one visitor to the Middle East, the Middle East will strengthen the development of luxury-themed products for Korea and local promotions as a high value-added long-term stay-at-home market.

○ The second is the expansion of marketing business to attract medical tourists from the Middle East. The average expenditure of medical tourists visiting the Middle East is about six times the average of medical tourists visiting Korea, and marketing will be expanded from attracting severe patients sent by the government to medical tourism for cosmetic treatments such as plastic surgery and dentistry.

○ Lastly, it is to expand the attraction of FIT through promotional marketing to strengthen online communication for the MZ generation. We plan to expand the FIT winter market centered on women in the MZ generation by regularly producing and posting trendy contents that can photoshoot women in the Middle East MZ generation, especially in the SNS online space, a major communication channel for young women.

5. What was the performance of the Korean tourism industry in 2022 when the COVID-19 pandemic began?

○ The number of foreign tourists visiting Korea reached an all-time high of 17.5 million in 2019, before COVID-19, but it fell about 95% from 2019 to 967,000 in 2021 due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

○ However, 3.2 million people visited Korea in 2022, up 230% from 2021, due to the easing of COVID-19 quarantine measures such as PCR testing obligations and quarantine release, and Korean tourism is starting again smoothly.

○ In particular, tourists visiting the Middle East have recovered rapidly in 2023, showing a recovery rate of more than 50% compared to the first quarter of 2019, before COVID-19.

6. What is the change in tourism in Korea after COVID-19?

○ Currently, all quarantine measures implemented during the COVID-19 period have been lifted in Korea, so any foreign tourists visiting Korea can conveniently use all of Korea's tourist attractions and experience facilities.

○ COVID-19 was a time of great hardship for the Korean tourism market and a time of preparation for a second leap forward to check the weaknesses of Korean tourism. In particular, K-tourism ventures fostered and supported by the corporation have achieved a lot of quantitative and qualitative growth in Korean tourism, centering on platform and digital content companies.

7. What is the purpose and business of targeting Middle East travel agencies?

○ Although global tourism is changing its travel consumption pattern around OTA, nationalities (local people) in six GCC countries still make reservations through travel agencies, so Middle East travel agencies other than FIT customers are also very important to Korea.

○ Accordingly, the Korea Tourism Organization has been working with the local travel industry to foster PTS (Private Travel Seller), a hyper-segmentation/customized product development and sales expert considering the travel characteristics of GCC nationals (local people) in order to preoccupy high-end tourism demand for GCC countries.

○ The Korea Tourism Organization plans to not only promote existing products in cooperation with major travel agencies in the Middle East, but also focus on developing products that appeal to those interested in visiting the Middle East, such as medical wellness and theme products using the Korean Wave.

8. What is the attraction of Korean tourism that Middle Eastern tourists prefer?

○ Since COVID-19, the travel trend of tourists visiting the Middle East has been changing, and by demand, MZ generation is interested in new tourist destinations other than Seoul and Busan, including K-POP-themed FIT travel, and women in their 30s and 50s are increasingly inquiring about luxury tourism.

○ In common, you can enjoy not only Korean Wave contents such as K-pop and K-Beauty, but also four seasons that cannot be experienced in the Middle East, such as spring (cherry blossoms), summer (sea and island), autumn (sweet wind), and winter (winter scenery such as snow).

○ In addition, basic tourist information such as halal food and prayer rooms, which are important factors among Middle Eastern tourists' travel destination considerations, is also investigated by the corporation and provided to foreigners.