1.

Definition of Hallyu Tourism

Hallyu or easily known as Korean Wave is the only term to represent
Korea Culture and good uniqueness propaganda to overcome people of the
world especially when it comes to entertainment, arts and cultural aspects.
According to Ravina (2008), The Korean wave or Hallyu in Korean Character
(Hangul) refers to a surge in the international visibility of Korean culture,
beginning in East Asia in the 1990s and continuing more recently in the United
States, Latin America, the Middle East, and parts of Europe. The term of Hallyu
was first coined as a pun by Chinese mass media in 1999. The original Chinese
word han-liu, literally means cold wave, connoting another culture penetrating
deep into their own, and the derived word, Hallyu has been used instead to
refer to the Korean cultural phenomenon, as the first character in the derived
word is the Chinese character for Korea according to the Korean Tourism
Organization (2002).

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Market Segments
Obviously it is known that women are dominating this kind of tourism
activity and the male is less dominant for this Hallyu tourism. This is because
we can see that Korean wave is targeted to the woman who is aged between 15
to 30 years old and even the older women aged in their 40s until late 60s still
actively exposed and participate in Hallyu Tourism through concerts, exhibition,
drama site location tour and fan greeting events. According to the Korean
Tourism Organization (2005) through table below we can see that out of 4.3
million foreign that visits Korea, 1.18 million most of them visited Korea due to
Hallyu tourism either directly or indirectly. With the further studies, it shows that
500 000 peoples of them are actually go and make a trip specially to visits the
drama location, concerts and fan greeting events to satisfied their needs and
wants as a fans of Korean wave. It reveals that the number of tourists from
Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, where Hallyu was
very popular, increased 35.6% from the previous year. The increase was much
higher than the 15.2% growth rate of tourists from other Asian countries.
Furthermore, this type of tourists that involve usually love being travel by their
own self or with their friends and family if they intend to do so. Its depend on
their self if they tend to travel alone and experience it alone with the low
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budget cost you can stay in budget hotel and if so they love to travel with
companion friends and family they can enjoy the experience of Hallyu tourism.
3.0

Current Attractions
Generally, as we talk about Korean wave attractions there are too many various
type of attraction that are new and some old stuff that coloring the true life of
Korean wave events such as television drama series, movies, Korean pop music,
k-style, concerts, fan greeting events, and cultural event. We will look through
this kind of attractions one by one.
3.1

Television Drama Series (K-Drama)

Korean wave started with the exports of Korean drama series in late
1990s throughout China, Japan, Taiwan, and other southeast Asian country.
As we can see the outbreak of Hallyu can be traced back to 1997, when the
Korean TV drama, What Is Love All About, broadcast on state-run Chinese
television (CCTV), set the stage for Hallyu in China, following an MBC-TV
drama series, Jealous, which was imported as the first popular cultural
product from South Korea in 1993 (Kim, 2007). Furthermore, the most peak
drama ever that be seen by people around the southeast Asian country is
KBS2 Television drama titled Winter Sonata aired on 2002. This television
series do catch Japans people attention when the series aired in japan
through NHK channel in April 2003. Amazingly, this drama series in 2005 it
got penetrate to the middle-east country with the drama got broadcasted
with Arabic subtitles by the local television channel. From the released of
winter sonata series in Japan, the Hallyu starts to become penetrated to
japan with the fan greeting events with the actor and actress respectively in
Japan and Korea events. As I know, the Japanese people come to Nami
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Island where they do experience the site location of the drama being filmed
as they look around the island and Korea see this as a potential tourist
activity and made it as a tourism product and boomingly it saleable to the
Japanese, Chinese and all around the world tourists. From there, every
location that being made as a filming location for any Korean drama they
will preserve it to become as a tourism product and make it as an
experience for the fans. All of these tourism activity fall under film tourism
refers to visits to sites associated with movies and television dramas, either
as incidental travel experience or planned travel motivation (Beeton 2010;
Buchmann, Moore and Fisher 2010; Croy 2011; Croy and Heitmann 2011;
Macionis 2004; Marcionis and Spark 2009; Riley and Van Doren 1992; Riley,
Baker, and Van Doren 1998).

Examples of film tourism are visits to

portrayed locations (real/substitute), tours of studio sets, film-themed

attractions, film premiers and award ceremonies, film festivals, places
marketed through film locations, and organized tours of portrayed locations
as well as watching filming taking place.
3.2

Korean Pop Music (K-POP)

The entertainment for Korean wave is too many to be groove on. As
we know the first generation of this Korean pop music also booming in late
of 1990s when there are this called as the first generation of idols groups
and soloist such as Seo Taiji and Boys, H.O.T, G.O.D, Sech Kies, S.E.S, Fin.KL,
Baby V.O.X, and BoA being debuted under various entertainment company
such as SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment known
as the biggest largest artist recording company that managing their own
label artists. As for the Korean pop music, obviously the southeast Asian
country will be exposed to this kind of genre but what I see in documentary,
surprisingly when there are people who in the united states that exposed
and addicted to this kind genre of music and they have their merchandise,
CDs, magazines of their favorite idols groups. Even, they can sing along to
the songs.
As for the second generation of K-pop there is idols group such as Big
Bang, Girls Generation, Wonder Girls, EXO, f(x), Red Velvet, 2PM and many
more. This idols bring more color to this kind of tourism through their
unique music and they can attract people with concerts, fan meeting and
3

fan-sign events. For SM Entertainment, they already do this kind of concerts

tourism where they attract foreigner people to pay them and they will
provide the luxury accommodation as the tourist got the ticket to attend
their annually label artist concert known as SMTWON Live Tour Concerts
where the fans get the chance to see the artist from the company, and they
got to participate in the concerts, other than that the tourist will be taken to
the k-pop museum where they can get the chance to transform into their
favorite artist, be in the set of music video and get record their own music
video as their souvenir.
3.3

Korean Cultural (K-Culture)

As for the cultural Korean wave, the Korean they did not shy to
exposed their well-known culture and customs of their people. As I know,
they still preserve the original building of the castle from the ancient era
(known as Joseon the old Seoul) and they will open it for the tourists to
experience in becoming a king. They also provided a package to stay on a
castle, be like a king and taste what the actual king cuisine to the tourists.
They also got this kind of language classes for the tourist to learn their
language character, known as hangul. Also Korean people still preserving
their old houses (known as hanok) and they still re-using it as a filming
location for films and dramas and of course they open it for the tourist to
know more about the history and learn about the place.

4.0

R.E.A.L
As for the Rewarding, Enriching, Adventuresome and Learning for the Korean
wave is the first one of course it is rewarding to experiences the Hallyu tourism
by yourself. It is a crucial for a fans of Korean wave to be at their favorite
country and they will definitely feel honored and feel the excitement. They will
feel at the self-actualization when their dreams as a Korean wave fans to be
there, experience it, feel the Korean feeling, breathing with the same air as their
favorite idols group and Korean artists and definitely they will feel fully satisfied.
For enriching, as they think Korean wave is rewarding for them as they practice
more their language, customs, how they behave (attitude), culture to practice
the good one within your life routine. For adventuresome part, obviously this
type of tourists must have their guts to be ready and well prepared to travel
alone and sometimes they just a new person to travel outside their hometown
4

or country. So they have to prepare all things from the basics information,
language barrier and their customs and culture. And lastly for learning
5.0

Conclusions
Lastly as the conclusion, Hallyu tourism is a niche market for special interest
tourist in their interest in Korean respectively towards television drama series,
Korean pop music, Korean culture, concerts, events, customs, culture and they
believe there is no end in exploring this special interest because they keep on

6.0

being alive to the new future of Korean Wave.

References
Beeton, S. (2010). Introduction: The Advance of Film Tourism. Tourism
and Hospitality Planning and Development, 7(1): 1-6.
Buchmann, A., Moore, K., and Fisher, D. (2010). Experience Film Tourism:
Authenticity and Fellowship, Annals of Tourism Research, 37(1): 229-248.
Croy, G. W. (2011). Film Tourism: Sustained economic contributions to
destinations. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism, 3(2): 159-164.
Hee-Joo H., Jae-Sub L. (2008). A Study on the KBS TV Drama Winter
Sonata and its Impact on Koreas Hallyu Tourism Development. Journal of Travel
& Tourism Marketing, Vol. 24(23). The Haworth Press.
Korea Tourism Organization. (2002). Hallyu (Korean wave) tourist
marketing. http://www.knto.or.kr/ eng/hallyu/hallyuintro.html
Macionis, N.

(2004).

Understanding the film induced tourist.

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Proceedings of the 1st International Tourism and Media Conference, edited by W.

Frost, G.Croy, and S.Beeton, Melbourne, Australia: Monarsh University, 86-97.
Ravina, M. (2008). Introduction: conceptualizing the Korean Wave |
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