KOREAN NET

Foreign tourists wearing Hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) take photos in front of the branch store of CJ Olive Young, a health and beauty chain, in the Hwangnam-dong neighborhood of Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province. The store building is built in the style of a Hanok, or traditional Korean house. (CJ Olive Young)

By Lee Dasom

The scale of content for foreign tourists has expanded to Koreans' daily lives.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) published on Jan. 23 its analysis "K-Lifestyle Tourism Content," whose theme is about foreign nationals' "dailycation," a Korean-style portmanteau of "daily" and "vacation." The word "dailycation" refers to a tourism trend in which tourists experience the daily lives of Koreans.

KTO classifies "dailycation" into fashion and beauty; food; lodgings and rest; and hobbies and leisure. It analyzed the travel trends of foreign tourists through surveys, short interviews, and social media.

The survey was conducted among 243 foreign nationals from 36 countries who are currently visiting or have visited Korea. The results showed that within the fashion and beauty category, most people were interested in beauty shops and hair salons (35.5%); Hangang River and parks for lodgings and rest (19%); shopping (20.8%), pop-up stores (12.5%) and one-day classes (12.5%), for hobbies and leisure.

As for "food," most people selected Korean barbecues such as samgyeopsal, or grilled pork belly (20.2%), and cafes and deserts (11.3%).

The survey analyzed the social media for the past three years of visitors from countries with the most tourists visiting Korea, including China, Japan and the U.S., and found that words relevant to "dailycation" were mentioned about 3.95 million times. By category, fashion and beauty accounted for 45.3%, food 23.7%, lodgings and rest 18.2%, and hobby and leisure 12.8%.

Based on such results, the KTO connected this year's main trend keywords and leading tourism types and introduced the following six themes: K-Daily, Krunch Like Koreans; Dive in Like Koreans; Adorn Like Koreans; Inhale Like Koreans; Lounge Like Koreans; and Yell Like Koreans.

More details about the content of each theme under dailycation are available on the Korea Tourism Data Lab (datalab.visitkorea.or.kr).

dlektha03119@korea.kr