Tourism Major University Student Supporters, 'Busan YY Supporters' Launch Ceremony Held

Busan City held the launch ceremony for the ‘2023 YY Supporters,’ a group of university students majoring in tourism, on the 20th at 2 p.m. at the Busan Eurasia Platform, in collaboration with the Busan-Ulsan branch of the Korea Tourism Organization, Busan Tourism Organization, and Korail Busan-Gyeongnam Headquarters.

Busan Tourism University Student Supporters Launch Ceremony.

This project aims to establish a platform to strengthen industry-academia-government cooperation in the regional tourism sector and to support outstanding talents to enter the tourism industry ecosystem through tourism-related employment, entrepreneurship, and experiential activities.

The participating university students will engage in on-site monitoring and reporting of regional tourism companies, promising small-scale tourist destinations, and transportation networks, contributing to key tourism policies such as revitalizing areas experiencing population decline.

The ‘YY Supporters,’ composed of 13 teams and 48 students majoring in tourism from universities in the Busan area, will conduct travel destination coverage using Korail trains and other means, create content, and carry out online promotional activities over approximately four months.

In particular, this year’s supporters will plan and report on themed travel content linked to Busan’s tourism issues and core projects such as night tourism, workation, marine leisure, alleyway tourism, and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions), generating ideas for the development of Busan tourism from the perspective of Generation Z.

The name ‘YY Supporters’ stands for the slogan of the ‘Young Island Busan Project,’ which aims to create a new image of Busan through tourism in response to urban vitality decline caused by population decrease and youth outflow. The slogan means ‘YOUNG, ISLAND and YOU’ (Youth, Island, and You).

It embodies the aspiration of tourism-major university students in the region to create a ‘young and rejuvenating Busan through tourism.’

In this regard, Busan City and the Busan-Ulsan branch of the Korea Tourism Organization held a launch event on July 1 at PIAC in Yeongdo-gu, Busan (2023 Korea Unique Venue), marking the start of the ‘Young Island Busan Project.’

At the launch ceremony, participants had time to understand the current status of Busan tourism through orientation and various programs related to future supporter activities.

Main programs included ▲2023 Busan Tourism Star Company case presentations ▲lectures on planning and branding of regional specialized content ▲team-building activities ▲digital tourism resident card (Busan Yeongdo-gu) & field trips to tourism resources in population-declining areas.

A Busan City official stated, “Fifteen universities in Busan have tourism-related departments, the most outside the metropolitan area nationwide. We hope that Busan’s university students will experience on-site activities such as night tourism and remote work at vacation spots (workation), which have officially started this year, and grow into outstanding local talents.”