Busan, Asia's top maritime cultural city, is busy getting ready to stand tall as a world-class tourist city in the post-COVID-19 era. The Busan Tourism Organization lies at the heart of this aspiration.

The corporation has recently developed a new Busan tourism brand identity. The brand identity incorporates the image of Busan as a city where people love to play, work and live, based on market research and expert opinions targeting 30,000 tourists. This reflects part of its efforts to bolster the city’s marketing activities at home and abroad and encourage more people to visit Busan.

The Busan Tourism Organization is engaged in marketing activities tailored to each overseas market, including the Americas, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and Greater China. For Chinese communities, customized promotions were conducted for each theme and season. Events designed to promote tourism in Korea and online promotions were run in three major cities in Japan. The organization also attempted inbound marketing for market recovery through presentations and roadshows in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. It is also making efforts to explore new markets in Europe and the Americas to diversify markets and attract high-value-added tourists.

Every year, new large-scale tourist facilities have been built in Busan. Following the Beach Train and Songdo Cable Car, Lotte World opened in the Dongbusan Tourist Complex, and alongside this, large resorts have been popping up in its districts.

Lee Jung-sil, President of the Busan Tourism Organization, said, “We will create 100 experiences unique to Busan by capitalizing on our diversity to differentiate us from other cities. We are making efforts to commercialize the experiences that are never available outside of Busan. We need to develop the latest content to facilitate growth by combining with related industries. We are developing products with connections to food and art.”

The Busan Tourism Organization has also developed a Busan Tour Pass that connects the tourist facilities with transportation, running it on a trial basis. In October, the Busan City Tour opened a regular route in the western Busan region. The orange line designed to primarily serve the western Busan region travels through Busan Station, Songdo Beach, Gamcheon Culture Village , Dadaepo Beach, Amisan Observatory, Nakdong Estuary Eco Center, Gukje Market and Yongdusan Park eight times a day, one hour apart. This course greets visitors with modern and contemporary history as well as superb views of Busan.

As the visitors depart from Busan Station and travel across Songdo Beach, they arrive at Gamcheon Culture Village and Jangnim Port, also known as Bunezia, to enjoy beautiful and charming spaces filled with colorful buildings. Gamcheon Culture Village is a neighborhood where refugees gathered during the Korean War. As the most well-known part of Busan’s original downtown area, it was created on a hillside. Each and every building is painted a different color from the one next door.

Eulsukdo offers hands-on experiences for its visitors. The field of reeds and silver grass spread before them provide a spectacular view. It is perfect for taking a quiet walk through the silver grass and observing migratory birds with a telescope at the nearby Nakdong River Estuary Eco Center. Seo-gu and Jung-gu, spanning the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall, Gukje Market, and Yongdusan Park, exhibit the modern and contemporary history of Busan.

The Busan Tourism Organization will continue to incorporate courses loved by Busan citizens, date spots, and popular restaurants into its city tour courses to show off the hidden charms of Busan.

Busan Tourism Organization President Lee Jung-sil revealed his strong ambition in his remarks that “We will work closely with the private sector, industry, and academia and mount an all-out efforts to navigate through the crisis that has recently hit the tourism industry. As this year marks the 10th anniversary of the corporation’s establishment, we will ensure Busan takes one of the top 10 spots for tourist cities across the world within the next 10 years.”

By Yang Jung-won (7toy@heraldcorp.com)