Jinju-si, Growing into a 'Stay-Type Tourism City' Where Visitors Want to Stay

Jinju Namgang Yudeung Exhibition Hall
Kim Simin Ho & Mulbit Naru Rest Area
Increasing Hot Places for Jinju Travel

Jinju City in Gyeongnam Province devoted all efforts last year to developing tourism infrastructure to create a stay-type tourism city that people want to visit and linger in.

In addition to opening the ‘Jinju Namgang Lantern Exhibition Hall,’ where visitors can enjoy Jinju’s representative lanterns 365 days a year, the city offers unique attractions such as the Namgang cruise ship ‘Kim Si-min,’ which allows visitors to appreciate the beautiful waters of Namgang River and Jinju Fortress, and the ‘Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Center,’ a cradle of entrepreneurial spirit for Korea’s founders.

In October 2023, Jinju opened the country’s first specialized lantern exhibition hall, the Jinju Namgang Lantern Exhibition Hall, which has welcomed 43,000 visitors as of January.

The colors of Jinju Fortress and the Namgang River enjoyed from the Jinju Namgang cruise ship, Kim Si-min.

The Lantern Exhibition Hall plans to renew its exhibition content annually in connection with the Lantern Festival to provide fresh attractions for visitors, and to develop and operate various experiential and event programs to strengthen the city’s image as Korea’s number one lantern city.

The ticket office for the Kim Si-min cruise ship, ‘Mulbit Naru Rest Area,’ has been recognized not only domestically but also internationally for its beauty and excellence as a wooden architectural structure, winning the Korea Wooden Architecture Competition in 2022 and the Grand Prize at the 2023 Canada Wood Design and Building Awards, establishing itself as a must-visit tourist spot in Jinju.

Jinju City remodeled the old Jisu Elementary School into a space to learn entrepreneurship and opened the ‘Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Center’ in March 2022.

Jinju City and the Small and Medium Business Corporation have provided Jinju K-Entrepreneurship education to over 4,700 CEOs of small and venture companies and more than 2,000 elementary, middle, high school, and university students centered around the Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Center.

The city believes that the sharp increase in visitors is mainly due to the focused coverage by central media of Jinju’s global expansion projects for K-Entrepreneurship, including Mayor Cho Gyu-il’s keynote speech at the UN Small Business Day event on June 27 last year, the Jinju K-Entrepreneurship International Forum, and the Youth Forum held in Jinju.

Additionally, to accommodate tourists visiting the Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Center and Seungsan Village, the city opened the Buja Hanok and Jisu Nammyeongjinchwi accommodations in Seungsan in June 2022. Since opening, over 4,700 guests have stayed there.

Jisu Nammyeongjinchwi is a wooden structure that modernly reinterprets traditional hanok architecture, featuring various rooms for 2, 4, and 6 people, as well as multipurpose rooms including a tea room where visitors can enjoy tea culture. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2023 Korea Wooden Architecture Competition and is praised as a special architectural work that harmonizes well with its natural village surroundings.

Jinju City holds the annual ‘National Folk Ox Wrestling Competition’ and weekly Saturday permanent matches to inherit and develop traditional folk culture, support livestock farmers, and create distinctive themed tourism products.

From March to September last year, 25 permanent matches were held every Saturday, attracting about 10,000 spectators to the stadium.

This year, the city plans to provide unique attractions to tourists visiting Jinju by holding Saturday permanent matches from March and a national competition during the festival period in October.

The city is also committed to popularizing woodworking crafts by offering various woodworking experiences and education at the ‘Jinju Woodcraft Training Center,’ helping many people appreciate the beauty of Jinju’s traditional woodworking in their daily lives.

Since its opening in 2018, over 40,000 people have participated in woodworking experience and education programs, with very high satisfaction and revisit rates. Last year, about 9,800 people participated in various programs, a 25% increase compared to approximately 7,800 the previous year.

A city official said, “We invite you to visit the Jinju Woodcraft Training Center, a hands-on tourism spot where tradition and modernity coexist, to experience the inspiration and healing that woodworking can bring.”