LG Uplus said on the 31st it signed a business agreement with the Gwangju Metropolitan City Tourism Organization to build an integrated tourism data platform for Gwangju and South Jeolla, and will cooperate to establish data-based tourism policies and revitalize local commercial districts.
The agreement centers on linking Gwangju and South Jeolla as a single tourism zone, analyzing tourists' movement routes and spending patterns with data, and using the findings for tourism policy and regional marketing. The two organizations plan to expand the scope of cooperation in stages through 2028.
LG Uplus and the Gwangju Tourism Organization will use telecommunications data to analyze the movement flows, stay patterns, and consumption characteristics of tourists traveling between Gwangju and South Jeolla. The aim is to move away from methods dependent on existing surveys or limited samples and more precisely identify actual tourists' movement paths and behavioral characteristics.
Through this, it is expected to be possible to see, in visualized data, which areas of South Jeolla tourists who stayed overnight in Gwangju move to, which attractions are preferred by age group, and which areas account for major spending. The analysis results will also be used to design a wide-area tourism course that links Gwangju's urban tourism content with South Jeolla's nature and marine tourism resources.
The two sides will also push measures to practically use the analyzed data for tourism policy and revitalization of the regional economy. First, they plan to build tourism data intelligence that analyzes tourism trends by period and region and use it as basic material for policy making.
In addition, they will advance digital marketing such as content recommendations tailored to tourist characteristics and festival promotions, and establish a data-based marketing support environment that small business owners can use to revitalize local commercial districts. During festivals and large events, they are also reviewing ways to analyze visitor inflow routes and stay patterns and connect the findings so local merchants can use them for target marketing.
The two sides believe this data analysis can consolidation tourism demand into regional consumption and generate an effect of the tourism industry spreading across the regional economy.
Jeong Jae-young, president of the Gwangju Tourism Organization, said, "As basic tourism data—whose reliability, including tourist counts, had long been questioned—are now presented based on data, this will be an opportunity to shift to verifiable and effective tourism policies," adding, "We will expand tangible smart tourism services."
Jang Jun-young, head of the marketing group (executive director) at LG Uplus, said, "LG Uplus has continued to play a role in connecting regions and people by using telecommunications data," adding, "Through this cooperation, we will enhance the competitiveness of the Gwangju–South Jeolla tourism industry and create a win-win model that grows together with the region."