International tourists at YongPyong Ski Resort in PyongChang County, Gangwon Province

A grand international convention Herbalife Extravaganza took place at the KINTEX in Ilsan, northern Gyeonggi Province, in June 2009.

Over 20,000 foreign guests from 12 Asia‐Pacific countries, such as China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia visited Korea to attend the event.

While attending the three‐day convention, the visitors reportedly spent 62.2 billion won (US$54.2 million), which is equivalent to exports of 3,000 Sonatas, a Hyundai‐made sedan.

Visitors attending international conferences, such as the KINTEX event, usually spend twice as much as normal tourists for their luxurious accommodation, top‐rate convention facilities and intermittent tourism opportunities.

As such, so‐called MICE (is an acronym for Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) tourism is emerging as a next‐generation tourism business in Korea along with medical tourism, Hallyu (Korean Wave) tourism and eco‐friendly green tourism.

The President’s administration selected the emerging tourism industry as among the 17 new growth engines in the belief that it will greatly contribute to value‐added creation and job creation. Among the 17 engines were also the LED industry, eco‐friendly transportation system, green banking and others.

The administration has held three rounds of discussions dedicated to enhancing national competitiveness in tourism industry over the past 2 years. A series of deregulation moves including simplified visa issuance for Chinese tourists followed. The administration also gave out plans to activate tourism around the four major rivers and to develop the country''s eco‐tourism attractions.

Thanks to such government efforts, the number of inbound tourists for 2009 jumped to 7.8 million from 6.9 million the previous year. The number of Japanese tourists in particular exceeded 3 million in 2009.

Korea signed a total of 33 contracts lat year to host larger scale international conferences (accommodating over 500 guests each), among which is the 2011 General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization. The UN conference is forecast to create ripple effects of over 200 billion won.

The government said it will do its best to promote tourism, taking the opportunity of the G‐20 Seoul summit and the 2010‐2012 Visit Korea Year. It also plans to increase the number of MICE tourists from 650,000 in 2008 to 3 million by 2018.