Korean Job Discussion Forums

Quack Addict · Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Location: Seoul

More garbage cans on the street and less vomit. Make it as clean as Japan (if thats possible).

Morton · Joined: 06 Mar 2007

Ok my ideas are a bit more extreme because i think Korea's competition is pretty stiff:
Legalize and tax marijuana and ecstasy.
Legalize prostitution.
Government funded music festivals to rival Summersonic etc in Japan
Government funded beach/full moon parties
Free buses to hard to reach tourist spots leaving from the main tourist areas in Seoul.

I would also create a tourist police force that deal with foreigners queries/problems.

Even with these in place i still think Korea would struggle. Unfortunately you can't polish a turd.

P.S. The guy who posted "the reason sits on my cock" cracked me up.

stevieg4ever · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Location: London, England

Korea has some beautiful things to see such as caves, temples, mountains, waterfalls, valleys etc but the best stuff is all outside of seoul and services catered to tourists / non-korean speaking folk are seriously limited in the provinces.

Im from the UK and in Europe I just cant see for the life of me people picking Korea as a tourist destination as it costs so much to actually get here in the first place. Bare in mind that inter-europe travel is more accessible because of the budget airlines as well, that kind of airfare is reserved for the real heavy weights such as Thailand, India, US, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong where you can normally combine sun bed and beach style relaxation with culture etc: something you cannot do in Korea.

Some issues you cannot bridge either: for example at the end of the day, someone who has had a hard 6 months in the office doesnt want to go to a country where he has to travel 3 hours by bus to a scenic destination from the capital where a round trip 6 hour hike awaits him and his family: isn't gonna happen im afraid. Korea isnt well known, it isn't exotic either. The slogans are laughable (hi seoul, sparkling etc).

I have said this for a while but it would be a good idea to have an airasia style budget airline between Japan, Korea and China to encourage travel between the nations and making them more accessible as a whole.

nobbyken · Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Location: Yongin ^^

South Korea already does pay tourists to come here, but they call them native speakers!

In all seriousness, the best thing would be to unify with the North.
Everyone and their uncle would come.
As long as NK is run by our dear bampot, then fear in coming close to firing range of the North is probably the biggest stopper, IMHO.

wanamin · Joined: 14 Apr 2008

annex Thailand. If Thailand became a Korean province, then Korea could have the most tourism in asia.

Crockpot2001 · Joined: 01 Jul 2007

Newbie · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

Give up on White tourists. There's nothing here of interest.

Keep focusing on the Asians.

Gollywog · Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Location: Debussy's brain

Start a Protest of the Month Club.

Have regularly scheduled events including flag burnings, bus demolitions, police riots, nighttime hate marches, etc.

Southern rednecks like watching that sort of thing.

komerican · Joined: 17 Dec 2006

Korea will continue to attract Chinese and Japanese tourists. There's no reason for Westerners to trek halfway around the world to Korea when they have better choices closer to home or in tropical south-east Asia.

By and large the only westerners who come here are paid to come here, as Gold Member said, English teachers, business people, etc. If those people could earn money elsewhere Korea would be the last place they would come to.

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:09 am Post subject:

endo · Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Location: Seoul...my home

aldershot · Joined: 17 Jul 2006

R-Seoul · Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Location: your place

ed4444 · Joined: 12 Oct 2004

I think there are a few things Korea could do to raise visitor numbers but it will never be able to rival Japan, China or S.E Asia because it doesn't have enough must see places.

1. Get Samsung, Hyundai, LG etc to promote Korea via their successful products and turn the current anonmyous Korea into a branded Korea

2. Work to reduce the price/difficulty of transit via Korea. Try to create a Japan-Korea-China backpacker route.

3. Take advantage of the films that had some international success and made Korea look cool abroad (may already be too late for this)
e.g The weirdness of Oldboy
The urban nightscapes of A Bittersweet life
The sexy Lady Vengence
The black humour from the host

4. Build a signature building so people would have a image of Korea before visiting. e.g Taiwan's 101 or Malaysia's Petronas Towers.

5. Sell Korea's unique foods and drinks as a reason to visit. Plenty of people have waddled out of a Thai restuarant after a good meal and went straight onto the net to book a flight.

Another good thing to do would be to avoid violent and daft protests being the most common thing people see in CNN and BBC concerning Korea.

merkurix · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Location: Not far from the deep end.

If Korea wants to succeed in tourism here are a few suggestions that work in other places:

1.) Stop spitting in public - it works beautifully in Singapore ($1000 fine).

2.) Forbid the propagation of identical looking buildings - it works in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a rule that any buildings that are not unique looking will get heavily taxed and regulated. This is why the architecture of nearly every commercial building is unique there.

3.) Start giving traffic tickets for people who violate traffic laws and funnel those funds into developing tourism and perhaps widespread octagonal red stop signs wouldn't hurt in many places - works in most countries.

4.) Put more public trash cans out - works in Japan.

5.) Invite true foreign investment--not foreign buying. Contend with the fact that some of the money foreigners want to make here has to leave Korea.

6.) Develop easier access to Seoul from the airport. The new express subway from and to ICN is a start. Promote it to the world dammit!

7.) Flashy is not better. Kill all of the signage that covers every square inch of building front advertising every nook and cranny for every business in that building. Nobody gives a rat's mini-turd if your restaurant's kobjang appeared in an SBS episode on 10-19-96, so is there really any need to blow up seven different 36' x 40' TV image pics on the front of the building? The same goes for most commercial websites.

8.) Create greenbelts.

9.) Hire some native speaking copy editors to assist with slogan making.

10.) Put some 100,000 won notes into circulation. Bigger notes can probably translate into more tourist spending. Let's face it, carrying 1 million won in 10,000 won notes is a bit cumbersome on the wallet.

11.) Innovate and invite foreign development of your country - works well in the U.A.E.