Hello. This is Realworld. Today, we'd like to introduce the evolving domestic and international tourism trends. Korea's tourism industry faces various challenges including idle spaces with no practical use, empty urban centers, and local cities that have lost visitors due to population decline. In response, local governments have introduced suspension bridges, monorails, cable cars, zip lines, and media art exhibition halls, but these haven't proven to be effective solutions.
Despite investing large budgets in constructing major facilities, they often face criticism for budget waste due to failures in content development and tourist attraction. But what if these idle facilities could become bustling theme parks filled with diverse entertainment? What if this were possible without large-scale amusement rides?
If an entire city became a theme park filled with story-based playable content, it could not only attract tourists but also extend their stay duration. Realworld is innovating urban leisure and entertainment culture by reimagining spaces with a content-focused approach. Think of it as creating theme parks that work like movie theaters, where people can experience various content in the same space.
The emergence of 3rd generation tourism content preferred by Gen Z Alpha
Global tourism content trends have rapidly shifted from 1st generation text-based and 2nd generation viewing-based formats to 3rd generation experiential trends that emphasize direct participation, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. This relates to fundamental changes we need to pay attention to in leisure and tourism. For Gen Z Alpha (Z + Alpha), who are digital natives raised alongside digital environments, physical reality actually represents a new frontier.
Unlike previous generations who encountered digital environments during their growth, analog experiences in real spaces become interesting and unique experiences that create powerful viral moments for them. Therefore, future tourism, leisure, cultural, and entertainment content needs innovation toward experiential content, moving beyond 1st generation text-based and 2nd generation media art/video content.
3rd generation tourism content transforming regional tourism
The most important keyword in regional tourism is 'stay-type content.' Exhibitions that fail to create curiosity, media art and videos that visitors quickly pass by cannot generate the tourism stay duration that regions desire. Recently, regional comprehensive tourism development departments, local government tourism offices, and cultural tourism foundations have been requesting lectures on tourism trends based on 3rd generation experiential content.
In June 2024, a comprehensive tourism development activation forum was held at the Andong International Convention Center. This forum, organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, was packed with officials from local government tourism-related departments. Realworld's presentation topic was '3rd generation tourism content trends that turn entire cities into theme parks,' introducing cases where idle spaces and visitor facilities transitioned from hardware-centered to experience-centered trends.
The fundamental change we must remember in leisure tourism as we live in the 3rd generation content era is that viral setters are trend setters. When we travel, we often plan based on viral information found on social media. Therefore, tourism content that appeals to the MZ generation and can go viral is essential. The same applies to brand stores. Unique and distinctive experiences that only offline stores can provide create viral moments. This voluntary viral effect creates a virtuous cycle where people discover offline stores and spaces.
But what about regional tourism spaces specifically? Despite huge budget investments, they're filled with hardware while lacking narrative storylines that emotionally appeal to people. This is why spaces like massive exhibition halls, media art installations, and museums remain empty. We've entered an era where exhibition formats that could exist anywhere without region-specific narrative stories, or displays that people pass by without interest, fail to capture people's attention.
We love movies and games because of their powerful immersive qualities that captivate us. But let's ask ourselves: do our regional tourism contents have high immersion levels? If they simply play videos, provide historical information in tiny text, sell things, or perform meaninglessly, tourists are unlikely to become immersed.
Without immersion, they don't get recognized, and even visitors who do come say 'there's not much to see here' and quickly leave. This creates a vicious cycle where they remain unknown, unsearchable, and gradually lose foot traffic.
Realworld has been meeting with institutions and officials involved in comprehensive tourism development and tourism facility development recently. A common concern we hear is about media art. Media art, competitively introduced by local governments nationwide following one region's success model, reminds us of the VR boom of the past.
What happened to the VR facilities that were eagerly introduced in various regions and spaces? The equipment became troublesome to maintain, and VR facilities became empty spaces that people no longer visit. Nevertheless, many regional idle spaces are currently busy preparing media art facilities. Before introducing media art, we must answer the following questions, especially for tourism purposes.
How much stay time does media art create for visitors?
What narrative story of our region does the media art convey?
Can our latecomer media art facility generate the scale and viral impact of successful cases (Museum A)?
When observing recently visited media art facilities, people didn't stay long in media art spaces. Regional media art facilities had an even more problematic issue of short stay times, often less than 10 minutes. Flashy videos lacking narrative stories couldn't escape the limitations of viewing-type content even when trying to contain stories, and people would just take photos and quickly pass through spaces that required significant budget investment. It's questionable whether they can encourage return visits from people who left saying 'there's less to see than expected.'
Are media art installations with no content updates or slow update speeds truly N-visit content that encourages tourist returns?
Finding answers in 3rd generation tourism content: 'Immersive'
What's the model after media art? It's immersive theater where actors and audiences breathe together in abandoned or closed old shopping malls and hotels, with audiences becoming protagonists entering the story. We can find hints especially in immersive spaces designed from the beginning to encourage visitor returns.
Realworld has also produced an immersive play called 'Montage Sequence' in a small theater in Daehangno, utilizing the entire stage, dressing rooms, corridors, and waiting areas. Depending on which actor the audience follows during the play, they see different scenes and experience what feels like a different play each time. New York's 'Sleep No More,' which is on a larger scale, reportedly requires 10 or more viewings to understand the overall story.
How can we create spaces and content that encourage customer returns? The most noteworthy place is 'Realworld Seongsu,' a new concept entertainment space located in Seongsu-dong, Seoul. Just like choosing whether to watch 'Exhuma' or 'The Roundup' at a movie theater, visitors at Realworld Seongsu choose from over 10 types of content prepared in a small 70-pyeong space.
Various genre content including comedy, thriller, romance, horror, kids, and couples can be played without changing the space, maintaining high double-digit return visit rates. Despite being located in a back area of Seongsu away from the main district, it exceeded 100,000 visitors in its first year and significantly contributed to revitalizing the surrounding commercial area.
With cafes, pop-up stores, and real estate offices additionally opening in previously vacant nearby commercial spaces, the area's vacancy rate dramatically decreased from 50% to 2%, showing metrics including 100x increase in foot traffic, surrounding commercial area activation (3 cafes, 5 pop-up stores, 2 real estate offices opened in the alley), and rising exterior wall advertising fees (currently 20 million won for 2 weeks).
Tourism business starts with securing 'killer content'
What deserves the most attention in large-scale comprehensive tourism development, idle space development, and urban regeneration projects is not construction, design, or facility creation, but killer content. And it's the spatial composition that visually expresses killer content and interior design based on the narrative structure of that worldview. The conventional approach to creating museums and exhibition halls couldn't keep up with changing times, resulting in empty spaces. And because people don't continue visiting, criticism for budget waste continues. Therefore, post-COVID-19 pandemic tourism facilities should be centered on playable content with narrative structure.
If you're curious about why a small 70-pyeong space records 100,000 paid visitors annually, how about taking time to visit Realworld Seongsu? We now live in an era of 3rd generation experiential content that goes beyond 1st generation text-based and 2nd generation viewing-based content through direct experience. We'll continue to visit you with various innovative domestic and international cases related to 3rd generation experiential content. Thank you!