ID :
194778
Wed, 07/13/2011 - 11:55
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/194778
The shortlink copeid
Capital area to add 36,000 hotel rooms by 2015
SEOUL, July 13 (Yonhap) -- Seoul and its adjacent areas will gain 36,000 hotel rooms over the next four years, the government said Wednesday while unveiling a package of measures to boost the local tourism industry.
The government will also build up the country's tourism infrastructure to accommodate a surging number of Chinese tourists in the country, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said in a report given to a government economic policy consultation meeting.
Under the plan, about 36,000 new hotel rooms will be added by 2015 in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, all areas suffering from a chronic shortage of quality lodging due to high land prices, the ministry said.
The government will provide cheap land for building tourist, business and other types of hotels in the second half of this year to encourage the construction of the hotels, the ministry said.
To attract more Chinese tourists, the ministry said it will support restaurants in developing new menus catering to Chinese customers' tastes, improve a system for giving licenses to Chinese-speaking tour guides and push for developing smartphone applications offering interpretation and other tourism information in the Chinese language.
The ministry also plans to tighten monitoring for local tourism agencies selling low-priced tour programs to Chinese people and seek more cooperation with the Chinese government to better protect them.
A record high of 8.8 million foreign tourists visited South Korea last year, helped by a rising number of Chinese and Japanese tourists, according to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), a state-run tourism company.
The figure is up 12.5 percent from the 7.82 million that visited in 2009, breaching the 8 million mark for the first time. In 2010, more than 21 percent of foreign tourists were Chinese, the company said.
The government will also build up the country's tourism infrastructure to accommodate a surging number of Chinese tourists in the country, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said in a report given to a government economic policy consultation meeting.
Under the plan, about 36,000 new hotel rooms will be added by 2015 in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, all areas suffering from a chronic shortage of quality lodging due to high land prices, the ministry said.
The government will provide cheap land for building tourist, business and other types of hotels in the second half of this year to encourage the construction of the hotels, the ministry said.
To attract more Chinese tourists, the ministry said it will support restaurants in developing new menus catering to Chinese customers' tastes, improve a system for giving licenses to Chinese-speaking tour guides and push for developing smartphone applications offering interpretation and other tourism information in the Chinese language.
The ministry also plans to tighten monitoring for local tourism agencies selling low-priced tour programs to Chinese people and seek more cooperation with the Chinese government to better protect them.
A record high of 8.8 million foreign tourists visited South Korea last year, helped by a rising number of Chinese and Japanese tourists, according to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), a state-run tourism company.
The figure is up 12.5 percent from the 7.82 million that visited in 2009, breaching the 8 million mark for the first time. In 2010, more than 21 percent of foreign tourists were Chinese, the company said.
