One year into the Lee Jae-myung administration, South Korea's tourism industry is undergoing a significant policy transformation. Once viewed as a sub-sector of the cultural industry or a leisure activity, tourism has been elevated to a key "national strategic industry" that can simultaneously drive domestic economic revitalization and regional balanced development. The government is intensifying its efforts to achieve the national goal of attracting 30 million foreign tourists by 2030, focusing on the "5 mega tourism zones and 3 special self-governing provinces" and the "Saemaul Movement for Tourism" as its two main pillars.
Current indicators for foreign tourists visiting South Korea show a clear upward trend. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the number of visitors in the second half of 2025 increased by 17% compared to the second half of 2024, and in the first half of this year, there was a 22% increase compared to the same period last year, setting a record for the highest number of visitors. In fact, the number of foreign visitors in the first quarter of this year surpassed 5 million, marking a 23% increase from the previous year. Additionally, the number of arrivals at regional airports surged by 50%, demonstrating the revitalization of regional tourism.
Minister Choi Hwi-young reaffirmed the commitment to achieving the goal of 30 million foreign tourists at a press conference on May 28, marking the first anniversary of the people's sovereignty government. He identified "regional tourism" as a key challenge, noting that over 80% of foreign tourists still concentrate in the capital region, leading to high costs and inconveniences for travelers due to overwhelming demand.
Choi emphasized, "While there is accommodation capacity in the regions, there is insufficient product development and connectivity in transportation and content. Accelerating regional tourism and effectively linking content, transportation, and lodging is the foundation for stable growth."
To address this, the Ministry is promoting the "5 mega tourism zones and 3 special self-governing provinces" project, which aims to restructure the tourism landscape from a capital-centric model to five super-regional areas and three special self-governing provinces. This large-scale regional tourism redesign project focuses on breaking down boundaries based on actual tourist journeys, moving away from the past focus on infrastructure development by local government leaders and standardized administrative units.
The initiative aims to package regional airports, lodging facilities, and transportation networks, connecting them closely while discovering unique regional characteristics to promote extended stays. Notably, President Lee has directed the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to open international airline routes, moving away from the logic of protecting national carriers, which is expected to further boost the activation of regional airports, the starting point of the mega tourism zones.
A major reform effort is also underway to implement these mega tourism zones and improve the chronic issues in domestic tourism. On May 20, the Ministry held a meeting with the Korea Tourism Organization and 13 regional tourism promotion organizations to discuss revitalizing regional tourism. This initiative is part of the "Saemaul Movement for Tourism," which President Lee emphasized during the 16th Cabinet meeting on April 14, calling for maximizing the impact of the tourism industry on regional economic revitalization, similar to Japan's regional revitalization system.
During that meeting, President Lee urged collaboration between self-employed individuals and administrative agencies to improve the quality of life issues that hinder domestic tourism, such as overpricing, disrespect towards foreigners, and unfriendliness. In response, the Ministry and national DMOs are launching a campaign to create a joint slogan and expanding their collaborative structure from local governments to administrative units down to town and village levels. Additionally, they plan to establish a community-driven public-private partnership system through tourism cooperatives and village enterprises, aiming to institutionalize this as a regular regional innovation movement.
Experts suggest that for the government's policy drive to yield tangible results, tourism must be viewed as a solid regional industrial ecosystem. Yoon Hye-jin, a professor of tourism development management at Kyonggi University, stated in a phone interview, "Future regional tourism should go beyond just attracting visitors for photos; it must create a flow of capital into the region, establishing a positive economic cycle. When local residents earn income from the tourism industry, quality jobs will emerge, leading to an increase in the commuting population to the area. This is the most desirable positive cycle."
She added, "To ensure tourism becomes a definitive growth engine for the region, we need to cultivate skilled professionals with planning capabilities in the tourism industry. Moreover, a clear career roadmap must be established to help these talents settle in the region. If we continue to rely solely on short-term project budgets or focus on seasonal businesses, we cannot break the vicious cycle of talent outflow to the capital region."
To sustain large-scale, field-centered policies like the mega tourism zones and the Saemaul Movement for Tourism, overcoming structural limitations is essential. This requires a macro-level administrative command center and a legal safety net to support these initiatives. In April, the government elevated the "National Tourism Strategy Meeting," led by the President, to ensure strong momentum for tourism policies that had previously been scattered across various departments.
With the establishment of this presidential control tower, discussions on legislative reforms and regulatory innovations, which had been stalled due to inter-departmental disagreements, have gained momentum. The government and the National Assembly have begun discussions to comprehensively revise tourism-related laws, such as the Tourism Basic Act and the Tourism Promotion Act, which have not seen significant changes since their enactment in the 1970s. This aims to align with rapidly changing global trends and digital environments while creating an innovative ecosystem where domestic small and medium-sized tourism ventures can compete with legal protections. Key policy tasks include introducing bold regulatory exceptions for small-scale and decentralized development and a fast track for new service regulations.
Alongside macro-level improvements, addressing persistent issues on the ground is also a pressing task. Limitations in accommodation infrastructure and the exploitative practices of some operators during large-scale mega events have been cited as major factors undermining the credibility of the national strategic industry. In response to the accommodation issues that arose during the BTS concert in Busan, Minister Choi acknowledged the fundamental problem of insufficient accommodation infrastructure to accommodate external tourists. He proposed a two-track strategy that includes long-term infrastructure expansion while utilizing temple stays and corporate and public training facilities as "buffer infrastructure" to manage short-term demand.
Furthermore, practices such as arbitrary cancellations of reservations followed by price hikes will be classified as "consumer-disregarding actions," and the Ministry, local governments, and tourism and accommodation associations will work closely to enforce a zero-tolerance policy against such practices.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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