Taean World Tulip Flower Expo Wins Netherlands 'World Tulip Design Award'

Development of 'Time-Lagged Blooming' Exhibition Technique After Testing Over 2,000 Species for More Than 10 Years

The Chungnam Taean World Tulip Flower Expo was recognized for its excellence by winning the Design Award in the homeland of tulips, the Netherlands. The '2024 World Tulip Representatives Meeting' held on the 17th in The Hague, Netherlands. /Taean County

The Taean World Tulip Flower Festival, which has gained great popularity as South Korea's representative spring flower festival, has been recognized for its excellence by winning a design award in the Netherlands, the home of tulips.

The county announced on the 25th that at the ‘2024 World Tulip Summit (WTS)’ held recently in The Hague, Netherlands, the Taean World Tulip Flower Festival, organized by Korea Flower Park, received the ‘World Tulip Design Award’.

The WTS is a conference where representatives from the flower and garden tourism industries, including tulips, gather to discuss development strategies. Among over 300 tulip festivals worldwide, 33 festivals and garden representatives from 21 officially recognized countries attend.

This includes world-renowned sites such as the Netherlands' ‘Keukenhof’, Canada’s ‘Butchart Gardens’, the United Kingdom’s ‘Kew Gardens’, and Singapore’s ‘Gardens by the Bay’.

The Taean World Tulip Flower Festival was the only Asian participant recognized for its value, and on this day, Taean County, Turkiye (Industrial Development category), the United States (Media category), and Canada (Landscape category) were also honored with awards.

The Taean World Tulip Flower Festival is a festival where visitors can see 2.6 million tulips, held every spring at Kkotji Beach in Anmyeondo, Taean, Chungnam, known as the ‘City of Flowers and the Sea’.

The scene of the "2024 World Tulip Representatives Conference" held on the 17th in The Hague, Netherlands. / Taean County

The organizer, Korea Flower Park, has ushered in a new chapter for the festival by developing a display technique that allows for staggered blooming, based on data collected from testing over 2,000 varieties over the past decade.

Additionally, after in-depth analysis of the tulips’ shapes, colors, and sizes, the tulips were planted according to designs by professional garden designers, earning high praise.

Kang Hangshik, CEO of Korea Flower Park, said, “The Taean World Tulip Flower Festival is operated by the Agricultural Research and Extension Services and flower farmers. Although the increasing number of festivals and the rise in overseas tourism are dispersing visitors, maximizing our expertise to maintain competitiveness has led to this good result.”

An official from Taean County stated, “This award for the Taean World Tulip Flower Festival is a meaningful achievement that promotes the beauty of Taean to the world. We will continue to work with related organizations to further enhance the value of Taean as a tourist destination.”

Meanwhile, the ‘Taean International Horticultural Healing Expo’ is scheduled to be held in 2026 at the Kkotji Coastal Park area in Anmyeondo. Accordingly, after operating the Taean World Tulip Flower Festival next spring, Korea Flower Park plans to move to Nature World in Nam-myeon to continue hosting the expo.