On the 25th, 2024 Educational Travel Briefing Session Held
As the global educational travel market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 17% until 2031, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 25th that they will hold the '2024 Educational Travel Briefing Session' to promote educational travel.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization's 2019 survey of foreign tourists, foreign tourists visiting for educational purposes had an average stay of 18.2 days, nearly three times longer than the average stay of 6.7 days. The average expenditure per person was also $1,775.3, about 1.4 times higher than the average of $1,239.2, making it a new high value-added blue ocean in the tourism market.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization held the '2024 Educational Travel Briefing Session' at the KTO Seoul Center on the same day, introducing government support systems to stakeholders for revitalizing educational travel and sharing excellent regional cases.
The briefing session was attended by institutions responsible for international student exchanges such as the Ministry of Education’s National Institute for International Education, metropolitan and provincial offices of education, universities, and regional international education centers, as well as educational travel specialized travel agencies and inbound tourism platform operators like Creatrip.
The Ministry and the KTO support inbound educational travel groups by providing welcome events upon arrival, Korean cultural experiences, and souvenirs. Customized programs are also offered according to the interests and preferences of groups wishing to visit Korea.
The Incheon East Asia International Education Center, in cooperation with the Korea Tourism Organization, connected Incheon International High School with Japan’s Chuo University Suginami High School and attracted inbound study tours by offering various cultural exchange programs. Yonsei University’s Global Elite College, in collaboration with the KTO, provided Korean tourism opportunities including K-pop dance classes for new students from Greater China.
Educational Trip for Gifted Students of Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. [Photo by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism]
In March, the KTO, in cooperation with the Buddhist Cultural Business Group, arranged an opportunity for over 100 members of the Harvard Orchestra visiting Korea to experience traditional Korean culture such as temple food and meditation at Jingwansa Temple. About 100 students from Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev Intellectual School toured major Korean university campuses, visited domestic conglomerates like Samsung, and experienced K-pop dance classes through high-priced tourism products in March.
In April, group study tours from students in Los Angeles, USA; Sydney, Australia; and Osaka, Japan continued to visit Korea.
Park Jong-taek, Director of Tourism Policy at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, explained, "Educational travel can expand into various programs by age group, including middle and high school study tours, 'gap year' language study and volunteering for high school graduates, university exchange students, and industrial training for graduates. Especially, the younger generation has unlimited potential as they create demand for repeat visits in the future."
He added, "With the enthusiasm for learning Korean culture and language hotter than ever, we will collaborate with related organizations to convert this into actual inbound demand by targeting the global youth (MZ) generation."
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