Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Atavistic]

ENGLISH.

Make it EASY to find an ENGLISH SPEAKING PERSON.

Hate to say it, but go to any major tourist spots and SOMEONE speaks English. As has been pointed out, you can't even get a decent train schedule in English. Much of the Korea tourism website is outdated, too.

[Kimchi Cha Cha]

Making the average Kim, Cho or Park on the street a bit more open and friendly hasn't been mentioned yet would go a lot to help foster better images of Korea and improve their tourism industry. I know of several friends, acqauintances and family members who have travelled to Korea and mostly enjoyed, saying it was interesting, unique and quite under-rated. Most also said it was difficult to get around at times, especially outside Seoul, and they encountered some less than hospitable service.

My Mum and Dad visited here two years ago and had a great time for the most part, however they could see how I become jaded sometimes. My Mum popped off for the toilet at Seoul Station only to come back minutes later to tell my father and I how some young punk upon seeing her deemed it necessary to spit at her feet. I mean what sort of a low-life would spit towards a 5 foot three inches, 65 year old woman. Luckily my parents had plenty of good experiences to counter minor crap like that out, but it's still going to leave a bad taste in your mouth and if you haven't had a great experience here those kinds of incidences with stay with you.

I think Korea undoes a lot of its good work with mindness xenophobia, racism and nationalism. Some people forget that if foreigners who have a bad time here they're likely to pass on their negative experiences when they get back home. All the good commercials and PR in the world, cannot stop accounts of people who have been here and pass onto their friends when they get back home. I think it would go a long way if the Government tried to promote locals being more friendly and helpful to travelers. There's plenty of nice, helpful people here but there's also a lot of tools which give the country as a whole a bad name.

[Unposter]

My advice would be to do what Hyundai cars did in the U.S.

No one gave buying a Hyundai a thought until they lowered the price and gave the longest warranty in the business -- 10 years.

Commercials alone will not change people's attitudes about vacationing in Korea. You got to bring them over and have them experience it first hand.

I would offer cheap package deals to lure people over including KTX passes, tourist site tickets, and discounts at Korean restaurants and souvenoir shops.

I would also develop all major tourist destinations to make sure they have Western restaurants, toilets, easy to read English signs, and tourist information booths properly staffed. I would instruct all non-Seoul taxis to be especially polite to foreighners and make sure the taxi translation service works.

I personally think Korea has much to offer but few people will get excited about destination Korea, especially compared to other Asian countries until people get a first hand glimpse of what is available here. Building tourism will take time and effort and Koreans should not expect it to happen overnight. They have thousands of years of history to overcome.

I would work the hotsprings angle too.

[whatever]

The most well-known Korean person to people from my country is Cho Seung-hui. Korea has one image problem after another...it'll never be a tourist destination. Maybe that on par with Paraguay or something.

It's an okay place to live, but I think it would suck to vacation here.

[periwinkle]

There's not enough promotion. For example, I recently did this job in AnMyunDo. I've been here since 2001 and have never heard of AnMyunDo before. Well, it was great, IMO! Really cute pensions all over the place (but I have no idea how much they rent for, because I haven't seen a website or any other promo material about pensions- hell, "pension" is even Konglish! I mean rental cottages for clueless tourists). Beautiful clean beaches; fresh air; mountains; and no tacky tourist crap (like how Inchon has that crappy boardwalk- can't remember the name, but there's neon and over-priced tacky cafes and a decrepit-sp? "amusement park" there)!

Anything touristy here is ruined with tackiness. For example, I've heard about some caves here, and they've degraded the experience by blasting Korean pop music throughout the cave. Nature doesn't need to be decorated and commercialized.

Oh yeah, as for the skiing, it gets absurdly crowded and I've seen ppl acting ridiculously unsafely (soju huts halfway up the hill? Drunk skiing, anyone?).

[venus]

Sorry Korea, but I'd have to say from my skiing experience at Vivaldi Park, that it was second rate. The snow was ony about 20% real snow and the rest was artificial snow from the snow blower machines.

Now don't get me wrong; it was fun, the park is good for a fun day out and it wasn't expensive at all, very reasonable. There's a coffee shop, restaurants etc and all is very easilly accessible and efficient etc.

The point is that unless someone was posted here for a bsuiness trip or lived here as an expat - no one would fly here just to use Korea's skiing facilities. It's the same with their beaches and mountains.

They're OKAY - but no one would fly here just for them when SE Asia has the beaches (amnyeondo is nice, so is Yeaso, but..) and temples - Japan and China outdo Korea on the national temples / palaces / shrines etc
And if you're a mountain freak where do you think you're gonna go - Mount Fuji or Soraeksan (again, a beautiful place, but...)

Unless you have some other reason to come here, you wouldn't come here primarilly as a tourist.

So Korea needs to market itself to expats, business people spending a week / month or two / or people doing stop overs on route to SE Asia / China / Japan.

Same way I'd say as a brit - hey check out London and maybe the Cotswolds for a couple of days if you're coming to Europe, but you know, make sure you get to see the Colluseum in Rome, The Acropolis and the Ionian islands in Greece, the Canary isles in Spain etc... Same would go for a country like Ireland (no offense guys / gals) fun / okay for a couple of days, but easilly (imo) outshone as a tourist spot in Europe by other countries due to climate / natural beauty spots etc... and that is what the majority of holiday makers want.