Hello! We are Realworld, a leader in experiential content.
On Friday, March 21st, a 'Tourism Development Policy Forum' was held at Mary Hall on the second basement floor of 'Realworld Seongsu' in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Government policy officials, tourism professors, and industry experts gathered to discuss and present on the theme of 'Discovering and Planning People-Centered, Community-Based Tourism Development Projects.'
It's not the space, but the 'narrative' and 'role' that matter.
Lee Eun-young, CEO of UniqueGood Company, who opened the forum, highlighted problems with current tourism development projects by mentioning 'cases where hardware-focused spaces failed to attract visitors.' She emphasized that while many local governments and companies focus on creating 'beautiful spaces,' they lack consideration for what kind of 'experience' they will provide to visitors. When CEO Lee shared her experience of visiting a festival that took 2 hours to reach but only had 1 hour's worth of activities to see and enjoy, everyone in the audience deeply resonated and nodded in agreement.
What's more important than creating new spaces is
giving visitors a 'role' and 'narrative,'
and presenting them with unforgettable experiences in that space.
Lee Eun-young, CEO of UniqueGood Company
CEO Lee introduced 'Realworld Seongsu' in Seongsu-dong as a prime example of applying this concept, explaining that 'experiential tourism content' where visitors become the protagonists of the story, rather than just a simple space, is the core of tourism trends. Realworld Seongsu is an innovative space within a limited 70-pyeong area that uses the Realworld app to blur the boundaries between online and offline, allowing visitors to experience diverse content. She also mentioned cases of transforming underutilized local facilities like closed schools into 'indoor experiential educational theme parks,' conveying the message that tourism development should shift from hardware-focused to software-focused approaches.
Where should regional tourism development policy head?
This was followed by an in-depth presentation on 'Regional Tourism Development Policy Direction.' First, an analysis was conducted on the major limitations and reasons facing regional tourism development. A professor attending the forum pointed out the following issues:
Lack of district-level tourism policy tools -> Need for advancement of regional tourism development
While policy changes are being made, the reality is that regions cannot keep up
Monitoring systems are in operation, but there's an absence of policy knowledge accumulation systems
Furthermore, they emphasized that the tourism industry environment is rapidly changing due to post-COVID, regional decline issues, and tourism trends are shifting with the increasing influence of the MZ generation and the emergence of new travel cultures like 'living somewhere for a month.' Accordingly, it was discussed that regional tourism development needs to be restructured to contribute not just to simple space creation, but to solving regional problems and qualitative development of tourism.
Particularly, what's important in tourism development is how to engage stakeholders with ideas and how to support them during the development process, requiring strategies to advance the overall value chain including planning, business analysis, distribution, and sales.
The professor then introduced strategies by citing successful overseas regional tourism development cases such as the Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum (Japan), Boston Freedom Trail (USA), and Dejima Museum (Japan).
Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum (Japan)
Space creation through consistent brand design
Diverse experience and exhibition spaces on each floor
1 million annual visitors, creating over 100 jobs
Boston Freedom Trail (USA)
A downtown exploration course connecting 16 historical sites
Used for weekday learning programs and teacher training courses
Sustainable visitor attraction by combining history and tourism
Dejima Museum (Japan)
Artistic expression of water rising from the floor and gathering
Even using the same resource (water), completely different experiences can be created depending on how it's presented
These cases also align with CEO Lee Eun-young's presentation. The common success factor was that beautiful spaces (hardware) must be combined with high-quality content (software) that people can immerse themselves in. It was a time to feel pride in confirming that the spaces and planning that Realworld creates share the same direction as globally successful cases.
Now is the time to move strategically
Experts attending the forum reflected that the stage of contemplating the direction and strategy of tourism development is finally becoming established, while expressing surprise that such discussions had already been taking place for 10 years. Now we must move beyond simple theoretical discussions to enable regional tourism to take a leap forward through practical strategies.
UniqueGood Company will continue to lead in developing content that reflects new trends in the tourism industry and creating sustainable regional tourism models. Please look forward to innovative tourism content development that provides experiences rather than spaces, and immersion rather than simple visits!
📌Do you need successful tourism development?
✔️Officials concerned about visitor attraction strategies when planning festivals
✔️Those who need solutions to utilize abandoned spaces
✔️Those with concerns about content and space
Please reach out to Realworld anytime!