Busan City Appoints Yoo Gyu-won, Former Director of Tourism MICE Bureau, as New Director of Busan Social Service Institute

Appointment Ceremony at City Hall on the 12th at 3 PM ... Term of Office: 3 Years from Appointment Date

Mayor Park Hyung-jun Urges Establishment of 'Busan-style Social Welfare Service Support System'

Busan City appointed Yoo Gyu-won, former Director of the Busan Tourism MICE Bureau, as the Director of the Busan Social Service Institute effective from the 12th.

The appointment ceremony is scheduled for 3 p.m. on the 12th at the protocol room on the 7th floor of City Hall, and the new director’s term will be three years starting from the appointment date, the 12th.

New Director Yoo Gyu-won previously served as Head of the Busan Citizen Happiness Communication Headquarters, Deputy Mayor of Gangseo District, and Director of the Busan Tourism MICE Bureau.

While serving as Head of the Citizen Happiness Communication Headquarters, he developed and utilized ‘Bugi,’ Busan City’s communication character, which is evaluated as having created a new paradigm in city administration promotion.

During his tenure as Deputy Mayor of Gangseo District, he opened the ‘Myeongji Senior Welfare Center’ to promote the health and improve living support services for local seniors, and also opened the ‘Gangseo District Childcare Comprehensive Support Center,’ a community childcare support hub, providing various childcare support services to residents, thereby contributing to the enhancement of community welfare.

While serving as Director of the Tourism MICE Bureau, he supported the tourism industry struggling due to COVID-19 by utilizing the ‘Tourism MICE Development Promotion Fund’ to respond to the crisis and preserve the tourism ecosystem. He also achieved significant results in discovering and promoting Busan-style tourism content based on the field, reflecting innovative trends such as global intellectual property (e.g., Arte Museum, Baby Shark tourism commercialization), remote workcation, and gourmet tourism.

The Busan Social Service Institute was launched in April this year, transitioning from the research-focused Busan Welfare Development Institute to a project-execution-focused organization aimed at establishing a comprehensive welfare service system by improving the quality of social services and discovering new services within the region.

Beyond cash support welfare for vulnerable groups, it aims to implement comprehensive service welfare in various fields related to improving quality of life such as education, culture, and housing by ① addressing blind spots through gap care and daily social service support responding to urgent care gaps, ② developing and distributing integrated care services that add various services to simple care, and ③ strengthening the capabilities of small-scale private service providers through consultation (consulting) for new service providers and support for scaling and organizing, targeting innovation and advancement of demand-tailored social services.

The city expects that welfare policy and service changes will accelerate centered on the Busan Social Service Institute.

Before his appointment, new Director Yoo Gyu-won said, “The Busan Social Service Institute is at an important moment to lay the foundation for Busan-style social service innovation,” adding, “I will do my best to discover and realize field-centered social services based on continuous communication with welfare sites and my 34 years of public service experience.”

Yoo Kyu-won, the new director of Busan Social Service Institute.

Mayor Park Hyung-joon requested, “Under the basic plan to promote public institution efficiency, since the Busan Welfare Development Institute has been transformed into the Busan Social Service Institute to improve welfare services and reorganize the social welfare system, please accelerate efforts to establish a Busan-style social welfare service support system.”