Deep in South Korea’s hinterlands lies an ideal duplicate of 1900s Seoul: Welcome to Sunshine Land, the most recent Ok-drama theme park to money in on booming Ok-culture tourism.
Fans of Ok-pop mega group BTS have lengthy flocked to the South to see websites related to the boy band, from the dorms the place they slept as trainees to current music video shoot places.
But as the recognition of South Korean drama has soared abroad — it’s the most-viewed non-English content material on Netflix, the platform’s information reveals — an increasing number of vacationers are planning journeys round their favourite reveals.
The concept that overseas vacationers would pay good cash and drive tons of of miles out of the capital Seoul to see a Ok-drama set appeared “crazy” to tour information Sophy Yoon — till she noticed one among her friends break down in tears at Sunshine Land.
“At that moment, it hit me: For me, it was just a studio, but for them, it was something much more,” she stated.
Preserved from the set of standard 2018 historic collection “Mr Sunshine”, the placement in Nonsan, 170 kilometers from Seoul, is replete with painstaking replicas of all the pieces from a turn-of-the-century tram to South Korea’s most well-known Buddhist bell.
“It’s like when we go to the Spanish steps in Rome where Audrey Hepburn had ice cream,” Yoon stated, referring to the 1953 traditional film “Roman Holiday”.
For South Korea’s rising variety of Ok-drama vacationers, “every door, every wall has a meaning from a drama that impacted their lives”.
“I get a lot more requests for specific ‘K-drama tours’ now,” she stated.
The rise of South Korea as a worldwide cultural powerhouse “has contributed to the appeal of Korean tourism,” stated Kwak Jae-yeon, the Hallyu content material staff director on the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO).
South Korea welcomed 1.4 million vacationers in September, up 33 p.c year-on-year and the best because the pandemic, with greater than a 3rd saying that they had determined to return “after being exposed to Korean Wave content”, in accordance with a 2023 KTO ballot.
In Seoul’s central Jongno district, vacationers like Sookariyapa Kakij are typical. Wearing a hanbok, conventional Korean gown, the 40-year-old had travelled from Thailand particularly to see the place her favourite dramas had been filmed.
“I want to find locations where ‘Itaewon Class’ was shot,” she advised AFP, referring to the favored 2020 drama, filmed largely on location in its namesake district of Seoul.
Jennifer Zelinski advised AFP she had by no means left the United States earlier than, however after she found Ok-drama — by the 2019 collection “Crash Landing on You” — whereas caught at residence through the pandemic, she determined to go to South Korea.
“I binged the whole show in a week. I barely slept and went through two whole boxes of tissues,” she stated.
This “snowballed” into her watching an increasing number of Ok-drama, Korean selection reveals and listening to Ok-pop, she stated, till lastly she “felt like I really wanted to see it in person”.
“My family and friends were shocked when I said I was traveling to Korea and on my own,” stated Zelinski, however for her “it just felt right.”
The journey trade is racing to catch up: one South Korean tour firm on the journey platform Klook stated curiosity in its BTS day tour has “skyrocketed” lately, they usually had been “completely booked until next February.”
“We are planning to add additional tours for other K-pop idol groups, including Seventeen and NCT 127,” they stated.
But most of this new kind of tourism is concentrated in Seoul, Jeong Ji-youn, a Kyungpook National University professor, advised AFP.
Tourism in rural areas has tended to give attention to extra conventional Korean experiences, which isn’t attention-grabbing to youthful vacationers desperate to discover the land of Ok-pop and Ok-drama.
“There is a need to develop more tourism resources related to contemporary culture that allow people to experience hallyu outside of Seoul,” she stated.
The port metropolis of Pohang is best recognized for shipbuilding and metal vegetation than tourism, however Emma Brown, 30, from Scotland, travelled greater than 8,800 kilometers to see it due to “When the Camellia Blooms”.
The 2019 romance collection “changed my life”, she advised AFP, including that she felt she “had to feel the drama in person. I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit Pohang when I was already in South Korea.”
© 2024 AFP