Global Online Travel Agency Platform 'Trip.com' ... Selected Busan and Vienna
National Geographic, 'Top 25 Breathtaking Destinations of 2023'
'2023 Domestic Summer Vacation Satisfaction' and 'Best Domestic Night Tourism Spot' Ranked No. 1
Busan City announced that it ranked as a global TOP2 city in the '2023 Popular Emerging Travel Destination Award' hosted by Trip.com, one of the world's top three online travel agency (OTA) platform companies.
The world's top three OTA platform companies are Booking Holdings, Airbnb, and Trip.com.
The cities awarded the ‘Popular Emerging Travel Destination Award’ were selected from 1,211 travel destinations (cities) that gained significant popularity based on five criteria: reviews, searches, purchases, evaluations, and subscriptions by Trip.com users. Two cities with the highest scores were finally chosen through consumer voting, a judging committee, and a board of directors’ final review.
Notably, the ‘Popular Emerging Travel Destination Award’ was newly established this year as a consumer award, given to cities whose consumer evaluations have significantly increased compared to the previous year. Busan achieved the remarkable feat of being selected as a global TOP2 city alongside Vienna, the capital of Austria.
In addition, Busan also received Trip.com’s '2023 Best Overseas Partner Award,' earning the honor of receiving two awards simultaneously at this year’s Trip.com 'Global Awards.'
The 'Best Overseas Partner Award' is given to 30 partners selected through screening among numerous overseas partners of Trip.com, and Busan was chosen as one of the seven partners in the Asian region.
The background of this award can be attributed to Busan City’s proactive promotional marketing activities targeting the Chinese market even before the approval of group tours from China (August 10), which received great response locally.
In June, Busan City focused on promoting its charm through various methods, including ▲interviews with the Busan mayor broadcast in four Chinese provinces ▲special features on Busan in travel magazines and podcasts targeting major Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) ▲holding local tourism briefings.
Especially, the Busan-themed street created in Shanghai’s Waitan Funjing attracted 130,000 visitors, and local media exposure reached 900 million times, showing a strong response from the Chinese market.
Moreover, Busan’s tourism products received great attention and were sold successfully during a live commerce broadcast conducted by Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, and Busan City, significantly raising Busan’s recognition.
Busan tourism products achieved sales of approximately 23,000 items worth 7.5 billion KRW, with real-time viewers reaching 9.6 million, reflecting high local interest.
After being the only Asian city selected in last year’s National Geographic’s ‘25 Breathtaking Travel Destinations and Experiences of 2023,’ Busan has now secured the title of ‘2023 Popular Emerging Travel Destination’ recognized by consumers worldwide, solidifying its status as a global tourism city and signaling a new leap forward post-COVID-19.
The global recognition of Busan can also be predicted by the rapidly increasing number of foreign tourists visiting Busan this year. Busan surpassed one million foreign tourists by August as it quickly recovered from COVID-19.
This represents a 373% increase compared to last year’s cumulative figures. Particularly encouraging is the sharp rise in the proportion of Chinese tourists since group tours from China were permitted in August, which is expected to become a new turning point for the development of Busan tourism.
Additionally, the growth rate of foreign visitors to Busan (416.2%) is higher than the national average (373%), indicating a stronger recovery rate of foreign tourists visiting Busan compared to other cities and provinces after COVID-19.
Not only has Busan received high praise from foreigners for its city charm, but domestic evaluations have also been overwhelmingly positive. Busan was ranked first in the ‘2023 Domestic Summer Vacation Travel Satisfaction Survey’ and was selected as the ‘Best Night Tourism City’ by domestic tourists.
In the ‘2023 Domestic Summer Vacation Travel Satisfaction Survey’ conducted by Consumer Insight, a consumer research specialist organization, Busan surpassed Jeju, which had held the top spot for seven consecutive years since 2016, to claim first place for the first time.
This survey calculates overall satisfaction by asking questions such as ‘Where was the main travel destination?’, ‘Were you satisfied with that area?’, and ‘Would you recommend it?’ It also evaluates 10 items: five travel resource attractiveness categories (places to rest, sights, food, entertainment, shopping) and five travel environment comfort categories (cleanliness/hygiene, convenience facilities, prices/fairness, safety/security, transportation), serving as indicators to determine the causes of changes in regional overall satisfaction.
In this survey, Busan ranked within the top three in all five travel resource categories, including places to rest and entertainment. Notably, it ranked first in the food category, receiving high scores.
Furthermore, the Korea Tourism Organization selected Busan as the best night tourism city chosen by domestic tourists, as it received the highest scores in night tourism experience, desire, and satisfaction in the ‘2022 Night Tourism Status Survey.’
This survey was conducted to understand the status of night tourism by region and tourists’ perceptions to promote night tourism. It targeted 1,000 domestic residents aged 19 and older who had experienced domestic night tourism (after 6 p.m.) within the past three years. This year, Busan was designated as an international landmark-type night tourism specialized city by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization, developing various night tourism programs.
Mayor Park Hyung-jun commented on these evaluation results, saying, “The nationwide efforts to attract the 2030 Busan World Expo last year and this year greatly enhanced Busan’s city brand. The efforts to attract global intellectual property (IP) content such as Pinkfong Baby Shark and Cirque du Soleil, along with the visible achievements of Busan’s international tourism city development projects, have begun to show results.” He added, “Busan will not be satisfied with this but will accelerate strengthening global tourism content to leap forward as a competitive global tourism city through continuous discovery of unique Busan content, such as publishing the Michelin Guide to foster global gourmet tourism cities and creating specialized night tourism cities, as well as target marketing for major tourism markets.”
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