Mapo-gu 'Safety+Tourism Red Road' Global City Brand Award

Mapo-gu Wins 2024 Global City Brand Awards in Urban Tourism
'Red Road' as a Leap to a World-Class Tourist Destination... Praised for Safety, Tourism, and Economic Revitalization
Mayor Park Gang-su: "We Will Do Our Best to Establish Mapo-gu as a Global Cultural and Tourism Landmark"

Hongdae Red Road

Mapo-gu (Mayor Park Kang-su) has been honored with the Grand Prize in the National Representative City Tourism category at the '2024 Global City Brand Awards.'

The '2024 Global City Brand Awards,' held on the 17th at the Korea Press Center, recognize cities that contribute to national tourism competitiveness while ensuring sustainability. Mapo-gu won the award in the National Representative Tourism City category by submitting the theme "Creating the Red Road to Leap into a World-Class Tourist Destination."

The district's Red Road project is a tourism-specialized street approximately 2 km long, stretching from Gyeongui Line Forest Trail to Hongdae and Danginri Power Plant. It features red paint with anti-slip properties and bold color design patterns.

This project received high praise for transforming a previously uniform street into a distinctive one while also creating a safe pedestrian environment.

Additionally, the efficient use of the budget by integrating safety with tourism to revitalize the local economy, which had been stagnant due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was highly commended by the judges.

According to statistics from the Korea Tourism Organization in 2023, the number of foreign visitors to Seogyo-dong, where the Hongdae Red Road is located, increased approximately fourfold after the creation of the Red Road. The overall sales in the Hongdae commercial district also rose by an average of 5.8% per month, and the vacancy rate of commercial spaces decreased from 12.2% to 9.8% compared to the previous year.

Following the visible success of the Red Road, the district is also focusing on creating the 'Hapjeong-dong Sky Road.' On the Sky Road, visitors can enjoy Hapjeong-dong's unique atmosphere with independent bookstores, distinctive cafes, and popular restaurants, along with valuable historical and cultural resources such as Yanghwa Naru and Jamdubong relics.

The district expects that these uniquely themed streets will bring diverse attractions to various parts of Mapo, revitalizing alleys and driving the local economy.

Park Kang-su, Mayor of Mapo-gu, said, "It is especially meaningful that Mapo-gu received the Global City Brand Grand Prize in the city tourism sector, which is a future food source and an important growth engine. We will do our best to firmly establish Mapo as a representative cultural tourism city in Korea that attracts people from around the world."