The tourism industry, which has struggled to prove its export performance despite attracting foreign tourists and generating foreign currency, is set to see improvements in regulatory constraints. New criteria for recognizing exports in travel, accommodation, and international meetings will be established, linking performance verification to trade finance support.
On November 10, the Korea Tourism Organization announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding with five other organizations at the Trade Tower in Samseong-dong, Gangnam, Seoul, to create a service trade cooperation system.
The agreement includes participation from the Korea Creative Content Agency, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, Korea Artificial Intelligence and Software Industry Association, and Korea Shipping Association.
Tourism is a service export industry that generates foreign currency when foreigners stay in the country or use travel and international meeting services. However, unlike goods exports, the intangible nature of these transactions has made it difficult to objectively verify performance, limiting tourism businesses' ability to be recognized as exporters and access trade finance support.
This agreement aims to address these issues. A key component involves integrating the issuance, review, and statistical functions of service export performance, which are currently dispersed among various organizations, into an AI-based next-generation trade platform being developed by the Korea Trade Association.
The Korea Tourism Organization will define the scope and recognition criteria for service exports by sector, including travel, accommodation, and international meetings. It plans to establish a standard classification system reflecting the characteristics of the tourism sector and create a joint review system for verifying export performance.
Utilizing its experience in managing tourism promotion development fund loans and its network of regional tourism associations and member companies, the organization will also identify the challenges tourism businesses face in the performance verification process.
Once the related system is established, tourism businesses will be able to prove their export performance through the next-generation trade platform and connect with trade finance support, such as export guarantees and insurance from the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation. This is expected to provide a statistical basis for understanding the contribution of the tourism industry to service exports.
The Korea Trade Association will be responsible for building a platform for integrated management of service export performance and unifying the issuance channels. The Korea Creative Content Agency will standardize the classification system for content exports, while the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation will utilize verified export data for trade finance support. The Korea Artificial Intelligence and Software Industry Association and the Korea Shipping Association will establish export classification and joint review systems for their respective sectors.
Lee Kyung-soo, president of the Korea Tourism Organization, stated, "Tourism is a representative high-value service industry where foreign tourists consuming in our country is itself an export. With this agreement, tourism businesses will officially recognize their export performance and gain access to export support such as trade finance. We will actively work on establishing a tourism-specific classification system and joint review system to help the tourism industry advance as a legitimate export sector."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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