Day: June 18, 2023

The U.S.-based travel magazine Global Traveler has picked Seoul as the best leisure destination in Asia, the city government said Sunday.

The magazine conducted a survey of its readers from December to April, asking them to choose the best place for many categories involving leisure, luxury and lifestyle travel for the 11th annual Leisure Lifestyle Awards, according to the magazine’s website.

“With the sharp increase in K-content’s popularity, the popularity of leisure tourism in Seoul is also spreading across the world,” the city government said. “We will make full use of this opportunity to attract more tourists to Seoul.”

The city government said that despite the blow to tourism from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, it promoted Seoul’s attractions overseas together with its honorary ambassador and K-pop megastar BTS.

Last year, it also opened a tourism center tailored for hikers at the entrance of Mount Bukhan and plans to open a second center near Mount Inwang and Mount Bugak this year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

President Yoon Suk Yeol will give a speech promoting South Korea’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo during a general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the international body in charge of overseeing the event, in Paris this week, his office said Sunday.

Yoon will deliver the speech in English on Tuesday, the first day of the two-day assembly to be held in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris.

South Korea is bidding to host the Expo in its southeastern city of Busan in a competition against Rome, Italy; Odesa, Ukraine; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

“President Yoon Suk Yeol, who will appear as the last speaker, plans to conduct the presentation in English, and by strongly expressing the Republic of Korea’s commitment to hosting the World Expo in Busan, draw the enthusiastic response and support of member states,” the presidential office said in a press release, referring to South Korea by its formal name.

This will be the fourth presentation ahead of the announcement of the winning bid in November. Other speakers from the South Korean side will include rapper Psy, members of academia and chiefs of startup businesses.

Karina of K-pop girl group aespa and soprano Sumi Jo will also take part virtually.

Following a demonstration of K-content’s “overwhelming” power during the third presentation, the South Korean delegation will again fill the 30-something minutes allotted to it with various videos and presentations to make a case for why Busan should host the Expo in front of delegates from the 179 BIE member states, the presidential office said.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

More than 60 foreigners have been nabbed in North Gyeongsang Province on charges related to drug abuse and illegally staying in the country, local police said Sunday.

The police agency in the southeastern province said they carried out a special crackdown on neighborhoods with large numbers of foreign workers and apprehended 68 people, including 27 who were arrested on charges of distributing and using drugs.

The suspects include 43 Thai nationals and two South Korean nationals, who are suspected of distributing and injecting yaba, a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine, and 23 undocumented immigrants.

The drug offenders reportedly distributed yaba to nightclubs that are run exclusively for Thais and to areas with a dense foreign population after securing the narcotic through a line of sellers tracing back to a chief in Thailand.

The Thais who purchased yaba were all undocumented immigrants in South Korea and lived in groups in small apartments where they injected the drugs together, according to the police.

The crackdown began in April, a month after one Thai person was arrested on charges of attempted murder following a brawl involving knives at a club for Thais.

The suspect was found to have injected yaba four days before the crime.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Stakeholders of the local tourism and hospitality industry on Sunday said efforts are underway to make the province an even more attractive destination for travelers and adventure-seekers. Rey Felix Rafols, president of the Palawan Tourism Council (PTC), said the ongoing Tourism Travel Fair here was organized as a one-stop-shop for tourists seeking information, diverse destinations, and informed choices about their travel plans with the assistance of knowledgeable professionals. The three-day travel fair opened at Robinsons Place Palawan here on Saturday and will run until Monday. With the theme “Experience a Renewed Palawan: Celebrating People, Festival, Places, Food, and Culture,” it is one of several events attached to the month-long Baragatan Festival. The Baragatan (convergence or meeting) showcases the cultural groups of the province through trade shows, exhibitions, float parade and street dancing, among others. Rafols said the travel fair allows businesses in the tourism and hospitality sector to showcase their products and services to potential customers. “Its purpose is to commemorate tourism, encompassing not only the overall magnificence of Palawan and its unspoiled beaches but also the indomitable spirit of the Palaweños, which has consistently been regarded as one of our most valuable strengths,” he said in an interview. Rafols said that despite the challenges arising from the pandemic, Palawan “continues to be resilient, looking forward, and embracing.” He underscored the importance of prioritizing the advancement of food tourism and heritage tours by the provincial government as a crucial step in sustaining the rejuvenation of Palawan’s tourism industry. “There’s room for improvement in food and offering cultural heritage tourism, and hopefully, with the help of our tourism officials in the provincial government, we can do it,” he added. Provincial Board member Roseller Pineda highlighted during the opening of the travel fair the need for Palawan, or the Philippines as a whole, to have no off-season for tourism since it is a tropical country without a winter season. Pineda shared his idea of promoting tourism during the off-season by providing incentive travel that would encourage local travelers to fill gaps during the wet season, during the second half of the year. “During the off-season, we must encourage local travelers, both Palaweños and all Filipinos. The provincial government, city government, and every local government unit in Palawan can offer incentive travel,” he said. Pineda said one strategy is for government or even private corporations to offer travel incentives to their workers once they become top performers. “If we can do that in Palawan and, little by little, with the help of the DOT (Department of Tourism), we can lobby or appeal to the governors’ league to implement it nationwide and provide incentive travel to top-performing workers. The beneficiary of that would be Palawan because we are known as a prime tourist destination,” he added.

Source: Philippines News Agency