Customized Digital Tourist Map for Overseas Visitors: 'Maeryeok Seoul Jido' Service

Launch of Map Service Featuring Attractive Spots for Overseas Visitors to Boost Global Tourism
Map Service Allows Citizens to Instantly Locate Attractive Spots in Seoul by Viewing Photos, Enhancing Convenience
Provides User-Customized Automatic Translation and Integration with Private Portals like Naver and Google

Since the 24th, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has newly launched the ‘Attractive Seoul Map,’ a map service that allows citizens and domestic and international visitors to quickly and easily find not only tourist attractions but also charming places in Seoul.

The ‘Attractive Seoul Map’ is a digital map service where visitors can check out Seoul’s attractive tourist spots all in one place, providing customized information for domestic and international visitors planning their trip to Seoul.

First, individual tourism information from Seoul’s representative tourism website ‘Visit Seoul’ and district-level tourism websites has been gathered in one easy-to-view map. In particular, the ‘Narrated Walking Tour Courses,’ which were previously shown as illustrations, will now provide accurate route information on actual online maps.

Famous tourist spots available on Google, Naver, and Kakao maps, as well as newly created facilities, short-term event information, and small but charming neighborhood attractions have been collected based on location to improve accessibility to travel information.

The location-based ‘Image Archiving Map Service,’ which could previously be seen in smartphone photo albums, is also provided. By adding location information to publicly available photos from the Seoul city website’s ‘Seoul One Cut,’ users can view photos directly on the map and find their way to those places.

‘Seoul One Cut’ captures and shares beautiful and attractive places or event scenes throughout Seoul with citizens.

The ‘Image Archiving Map Service’ is designed for tourists based on familiar photo viewing functions found in apps like Google and Apple photo albums. If users see a photo of a place they want to visit, the service links to private map navigation and road view services such as Naver or Kakao, allowing them to find the location immediately, making it useful when planning a visit to Seoul.

Additionally, it connects to related videos via Google Image Search and YouTube, enabling users to check media information without having to browse around.

Along with this, for facilities and event introductions that require promotion to foreigners, the Google Translate API automatically translates content into the user’s device language, reducing the time and budget needed for translation.

The automatic translation feature can be manually changed by users on the web screen, but it primarily detects the language of the accessing device and provides the service in that language. Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese switch the background map to the corresponding language, while other languages use the English background map.

Automatic translation supports 10 languages (including Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, etc.), and the background map is provided in 4 languages (Korean, English (current), Chinese, Japanese (from January 25)). The city plans to expand supported foreign languages for automatic translation as needed in the future.

Moreover, the ‘Attractive Seoul Map’ uses ‘OpenStreetMap’ to expand its service area globally beyond the Korean Peninsula. This includes information on Seoul and its sister and friendly cities, aiming to promote Seoul’s status as a world-class city.

‘OpenStreetMap’ is a free worldwide map service created by citizens globally under a UK nonprofit organization. It is used as a reference map in services such as Apple Maps and TomTom (overseas navigation) maps.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to utilize the ‘Attractive Seoul Map’ as a new type of digital tourism map that gathers not only tourist attractions but also charming places where citizens can visit and enjoy, aiming to revitalize the tourism industry and promote Seoul’s charm to global citizens.

Park Jin-young, Director of the Digital City Bureau, said, “We will promote Attractive Seoul as a communication tool through digital maps to overseas tourists,” adding, “We hope this digital map service, which reflects sustainable new tourism trends, will be helpful to domestic and international tourists visiting Seoul.”