Korean Job Discussion Forums

[weatherman]

Korea is a great place to be, but not really to visit. I love going to temples, but before I knew anything about Korean buddhism, they were boring after two or three visits. Like wise with the local schools called hyanggyo and sodang. You need to really know some aspects of the fundimentalist nature of Korean confucianism to get a kick out these places. Traditional architecture, village layouts, and symbolic iconography, both natural and produced by man needs to be understood to really get, the "wow, Korea is cool" feeling. What makes Korea cool isn't accessible really on a short visit.

There is also the locals ( ), which are daunting to say the least when dealing with them. Korean xenophobia isn't conducive to a friendly experience.

Korea is great, but you have to invest some time to get the experience of Korea. I would like to see a kind of Bed and Breakfast system built up in the countryside. The countryside is enormously beautiful and depopulated and rustic. It would be great to have newly built traditional styled houses located in real villages to spend a few relaxing nights in while driving through the counryside, where you could get some local grub and rice wine, smell smoke from a fire, and watch the stars at night, while remember the good hike and temple visited during the day.

[On the other hand]

[helly]

"Koreans are friendly" is only one of many articles of faith. This blind faith is a major contributor to Korea's poor tourism industry.

[rapier]

"Drive for economic growth has been at the cost of aesthetics'. this is certainly a major problem. Korea is still busily concreting and "sanitising" every last wild/untouched spot it has.
More tourism would help a lot in making the govt. here realise that its worth preserving its wild countryside areas.
Imagine if there was even one area of forest left in the country that still held tigers. that could be reliably seen by tourists..imagine the drawcard that would be?!!!! But no, they obviously were worth more to koreans dead/extinct than alive.

[Seoultrader]

[erlyn]

As someone who used to write and administer surveys for a living, I have to say I shuddered when I read that bit about the surveyor. But then, I imagine it's pretty hard to get decent survey results on anything here in Korea (or elsewhere in Asia, for that matter) what with the pressure to always tell people what they want to hear.

As for Korea being a tourism destination (for North American and European tourists)- well, I guess it depends on their goals. There's no way they can hope to get the kind of recognition that both Japan and China currently have without a lot time and money (both spent properly - loved that "unknown actors" gambit ). If I were working for the KNTO, I would start by looking for niche markets, such as Taekwondo enthusiasts (mentioned upthread), some place where they truly have something unique to offer. I think it has a lot of potential to market itself to people who have "been everywhere", as well.

One of my favourite shows on TV back home is "The Amazing Race". It's a reality show where people have to travel around the world, racing between different countries. In each country they stop in, they have to do something interesting and challenging that is specific to that country. In series 4, they came to Korea (unfortunately landing on a really horrible day in January, after coming from Borneo). In every other country that racers travelled to, they had no problems communicating with taxi drivers, or locals. They hit Korea, and right out of the gate in Incheon, they can't find taxi drivers who speak enough English to take them to downtown Seoul. Two events that producers chose to showcase Korea - eating live octopus, and diving into a frozen river in the Sundam valley. One of the taxi drivers got lost trying to find the river, and ended up on a bridge driving towards the DMZ - guys in tanks waved them back the right way. The rest of the episode was made up of watching the racers sit in Seoul traffic for two hours.

Now, I happen to think that the terrible time they had here in Korea wasn't representative of what Korea has to offer - it made it look pretty terrible. So why wasn't the KNTO all over these guys, helping them pick more interesting activities, better ways to showcase Korea? In my opinion, this was a lost opportunity.

Anyway, there's lots to say on this subject. Can't wait to read more opinions.

[rapier]

You have to hand it to places like Thailand which have hosted so many tourists, for so long. They've learned how to welcome and handle them. it'd be decades before the likes of S.Korea comes even close to meeting the needs of tourists...

[Joe Thanks]

I completely agree with you. Well put, weatherman. Immediate �Knowledge� helps and that takes time. Korea�s isolationism and xenophobia hasn�t been conducive to it being book-friendly and talk show and documentary friendly outside of the Hermit Kingdom, and as such � few people have a clue about ANY of its rituals, landmarks, etc. China and Japan were smart in their PR and when they opened up to foreigners the foreigners wrote and talked and filmed and photographed and viola�

I think it�s fairly self-evident the country needs to mature before the world will really stop and look.

[Joe Thanks]

[quote="On the other hand"]

[Joe Thanks]

It�s ironic. I never watched that show and the first episode (and so far, only episode) I did see (upon returning from Taiwan) was the South Korean one.

It did South Korea no favors but I think it was dead-on with its portrait of Seoul. In all fairness, the producers didn�t seem to want to paint a bad picture of SK either.

KNTO =�s �Kickbacks Needed To Oblige.� This refers to the old farts calling the shots there. It�s time to kick their arses out.

Cheers,

Joe

[kangnamdragon]

[Joe Thanks]

[Tiger Beer]

[Tiger Beer]

[whatthefunk]

Ask any Korean Pohangster what the best thing for tourists to see is and they will tell you POSCO.