Joint Designation of Bukhangang Riverside Tourism Special Zone in Gapyeong and Chuncheon Falls Through

Seo Taewon County Governor "Actively Striving to Independently Develop Tourism Revitalization Plans"

Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi Province (Governor Seo Tae-won) announced on the 14th that it has concluded that it is impossible to supplement the application for the designation of the Bukhangang Riverside Tourism Special Zone by Gyeonggi Province.

Aerial view of Gapyeongcheon. Provided by Gapyeong County

Since 2019, Gapyeong-gun, together with Chuncheon City, has been promoting the Bukhangang Riverside Tourism Special Zone, the nation’s first metropolitan special zone development project. After submitting the application in 2021 and providing supplementary materials, they have been striving for the designation of the special zone, but recently concluded that they cannot meet the supplementation requirements based on expert institution opinions.

The requested supplementary materials based on expert consultation include the number of foreign tourists and the ratio of land used for tourism and non-tourism activities, which were judged to be impossible to verify.

In this regard, Gapyeong-gun submitted an opinion of impossibility to supplement the application for the designation of the Bukhangang Riverside Tourism Special Zone to Gyeonggi Province.

Gapyeong-gun is promoting projects such as registering Jaraseom as a provincial garden, creating a US-Commonwealth Security Park, establishing the Jaraseom Smart Workation, and developing the Jaraseom Riverside Ecotourism Belt to attract domestic and foreign tourists.

Seo Tae-won, Governor of Gapyeong-gun, stated, “Although the designation of the tourism special zone promoted with Chuncheon City has fallen through, we will do our best to attract 10 million living population tourists through aggressive marketing to revitalize tourism in Gapyeong-gun.”