Hello.
We are Realworld, a playable content platform.
When you think of local tourist attractions,
do you also picture their nighttime scenery?
Looking at spaces that attract many visitors during the day
but naturally become quiet after sunset,
How can we utilize the nighttime hours?
Those who operate such spaces have probably
pondered this question at least once.
It's difficult to create compelling reasons for extended stays,
and even when nighttime content is planned, it often ends up as one-off events.
Is there really no way to make people
deliberately visit at night without changing existing spaces and facilities?
The transformation that began with this question
is currently happening at Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village!
Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village: The Night Scene is Changing
Image source: Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village
Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village
is a hanok accommodation space located near Ojukheon and Seongyojang,
where tourists visiting Gangneung naturally come during daytime hours thanks to its serene atmosphere.
However, during nighttime hours, except for overnight guests,
it was difficult to create active visiting motivations,
which was no different from the common concerns faced by many local spaces.
Night was simply a time to stay,
not designed as a time to revisit
for experiences.
This flow began to change
when Realworld's unique immersive playable content,
available only during nighttime hours, was introduced.
Rather than simply adding one more thing to see at night,
when the entire space was designed to be experienced through stories and missions,
families, couples, and travelers began visiting the hanok village specifically for nighttime activities.
While the physical conditions of the space remained the same,
the reasons and context for how people viewed this space completely changed.
Nighttime content naturally connects with accommodation experiences
What's noteworthy is that
the content experienced during nighttime hours doesn't stop at simple activities
but naturally connects with the accommodation experience.
Once stories that could only be enjoyed at night were created,
a night at the hanok became an experience in itself,
and it began to change from accommodation simply for sleeping
to accommodation chosen to complete an experience.
A structure was created where people stay to enjoy content
and the time spent extends the afterglow of the content,
creating synergy where nighttime content and accommodation enhance each other's value.
At this point, the space is no longer a place that passively accommodates stays,
but becomes a destination where people want to extend their time around experiences.
When experiences were added, the role of the space changed
With the introduction of Realworld's nighttime playable content
'Beyond the Dimensional Boundary',
Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village expanded from a space functioning primarily around accommodation
to an experiential tourism space with clear reasons to visit even at night.
This change was not limited to short-term experimentation.
The content first introduced last year concluded with great response during its operation period,
and voices from participants hoping for it to reopen continued steadily.
Encouraged by this reaction, 'Beyond the Dimensional Boundary'
decided to reopen once again this year,
and this year too, rapid response and high interest continue at the site.
This change also attracted academic attention
This transformation didn't remain only in on-site perception.
In April 2025, a paper by Professor Shin Hak-seung's research team from Hanyang University's Department of Tourism
was published in the Journal of Travel Research, the world's most prestigious tourism academic journal,
and Realworld's nighttime playable tourism content became subject to academic analysis and verification.
The research team used 'Beyond the Dimensional Boundary' at Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village
and 'Legend of Doraemi' in Wonju City as case studies
to empirically analyze how gamification and AR-based tourism content
create changes in tourists' cognition, emotions, and behavior.
The results showed that
tourists who experienced playable content developed higher attachment to spaces,
strengthened understanding and memory of destinations,
and showed significantly increased revisit intentions.
Voices from the field prove this
Reviews from participants who visited Gangneung Ojukheon Hanok Village
vividly demonstrate these analytical results.
Stories of both children and adults being immersed without boring moments, feeling regretful that time passed too quickly,
stories of visiting again this year following last year, with each accompanying group feeling excited by the new atmosphere,
and reactions describing it as an impressive experience like visiting the boundary between this world and the next continue.
What the research calls 'revisit intention' is ultimately expressed like this in the field:
they came last year and came again this year.
We didn't change the space,
but what the space does has completely changed
The case of Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village
shows the possibility that existing spaces can perform entirely different roles
without large-scale development or new facilities.
When stories were added to the space
and reasons for direct participation were designed,
that space transformed from a place to stay into a stage for memorable experiences.
The shift from observational tourism to playable tourism is no longer a conceptual story
but a change that has already been repeatedly proven in the field.
How to revitalize nighttime hours,
how to extend stays,
how to expand the value of existing spaces
have now become questions that many regions and space operators contemplate together.
This change that began at Gangneung Ojuk Hanok Village
is not a story unique to a specific region,
but rather a model that can be sufficiently expanded through the method of playable content.
Realworld will continue to create processes
where ordinary spaces transform into places people deliberately visit and revisit
through verified playable content.
Hoping that this case will lead to the next choices of other regions and spaces,
I conclude this article. Thank you.