It is an era in which only industries that draw tourists thrive. Convenience stores, for example, are focusing their strategies on attracting visitors to Korea. The analysis is that, with domestic growth slowing, maximizing the spending of tourists visiting Korea can serve as ample growth momentum. In step with this trend, the Korea Tourism Research Association, a nonprofit corporation, began this year to present keywords for tourism industry development trends. The decision reflects the judgment that Korea's tourism trend has entered a major transition.
On the 29th, the Korea Tourism Research Association, a nonprofit corporation, released "REDUNICORN," as this year's development trend for the tourism industry. It is a neologism created by selecting 10 core keywords of development trends.
The "R," representing the first keyword, is "Regenerative tourism for regional resilience." It means tourism content led by local communities must be put in place. It was also projected to be effective in overcoming the crisis in regions facing population extinction. The "E," representing the second keyword, centers on the need for embedded AI and digital tourism experiences. The "D," representing the third keyword, was about creating a structure in which inbound tourism by foreigners and domestic tourism by residents stimulate each other and grow together, or "Domestic & Inbound Tourism Synergy."
In addition, it presented the spread of introducing an ultra-personalized, intelligent travel operating system (OS); the standardization and advancement of global hospitality and readiness in regional tourism; and the development of integrated wellness tourism linked to promoting beauty and medical tourism. Heo Jun, a professor at Dongduk Women's University who delivered the presentation, said, "People say beauty and medical tourism did well this year, but rather than being satisfied, we need to further advance it to extend the length of stay."
Going forward, the Korea Tourism Research Association plans to announce tourism industry development trend keywords every year. Explaining the background, Professor Heo Jun said, "This year is the golden time for a major transition in Korea's tourism industry," adding, "The top 10 keywords were prepared based on feedback from more than 200 tourism professors in Korea."
Regarding the background for releasing keywords that link not to consumer trends but to policy recommendations, it said, "We determined that the more trend discussions focus on consumers, the more core agendas directly tied to survival on the ground remain blank," and emphasized, "Beyond the growth narrative, we need to redesign the industry's constitution and systems."
Seo Won-seok, president of the Korea Tourism Research Association (Kyung Hee University), who arranged the event, said, "After the pandemic, Korea's tourism quickly recovered around lodging and shopping, and we are close to the era of 30 million tourists, but now we must change tourism's fundamentals to pursue qualitative growth." He also said that field operations and policy should move in step around the trend keywords presented by the Korea Tourism Research Association.
Seo said, "An increase in visitor numbers does not automatically strengthen industrial competitiveness. Now we must overhaul the content and structure of tourism to drive 'premiumization of consumption' and 'longer stays.'" Seo added that convergence, artificial intelligence (AI), and market diversification are needed to achieve this.