[Cheongsong TourismBlossomingon the Strength of UNESCO] <1> Changes Made by a Global Geopark

Cheongsong Attracted 5 Million Tourists Last Year… The Largest-Ever Increase in the Official Number of TouristsContributes to a Tax Revenue Increase

Cheongsong has celebrated the second anniversary of its designation as a UNESCO Global Geopark.

It has become an area that needs to be internationally protected since it was designated as a UNESCO Global Geopark in the Korean peninsula for the first time, except Jeju Island.

Since the country's designation as a Global Geopark, geological attractions have been designated across Cheongsong and studied by scholars around the world. And a new tourism paradigm called geotourism has been established.

Let's find out about small and large changes occurring in Cheongsong, development of other Global Geoparks in Korea and foreign countries and lessons from them through five articles, in celebration of the second anniversary of Cheongsong's designation as a UNESCO Global Geopark.

◆Cheongsong-gun Attracted Five Million Tourists on the Strength of UNESCO

Cheongsong-gun is a small county with a population of about 26,000. Most residents make a living by farming. For this reason, it has been environmentally protected as a small county without chimneys. The current Cheongsong is attributable to the residents who practice nature conservation in daily lives based on the policies of Cheongsong-gun, focused on conservation rather than development, and the appropriateness of conservation.

Based on its noble natural resources, Cheongsong attracted five million tourists in 2018 alone. After Cheongsong was designated as a UNESCO Global Geopark, the precious county of the Korean peninsula was introduced to not only Koreans but also people around the world.

About 5.43 million tourists visited Cheongsong in 2018 only, according to Cheongsong Tourism Statistical Survey 2018, conducted based on big data analysis by the KT-Korea University Big Data Convergence Project Group. It is 20 percent larger than 4.56 million of 2017, and 360 percent larger than an annual average of 1.50 million in the past.

Particularly, the number of foreign tourists has increased remarkably. The number increased from the mere 2,903 in 2017 to 6.55 million in 2018, by over 500 percent.

Chinese tourists were by far the largest nationality of foreign tourists to Cheongsong, accounting for 28.4 % (3,035 Chinese tourists) in 2018.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea rebounded after falling due to the Chinese government's ban on group tours to Korea as part of its economic retaliation for the THAAD deployment in Seongju-gun in 2017. After the recent lift of the ban, Chinese tourists are returning to Korea.

And the opening of the Sangju-Yeongdeuk Expressway has improved the road between Daegu International Airport and Cheongsong, contributing to the increase in the number of Chinese tourists to Cheongsong.

◆Tourists' Consumption Helping Boost the Local Economy

The government of Cheongsong-gun announced that a total of 5.43 million tourists visited the county last year and they spent 73.1 billion won, up 47 percent from the previous year.

The analysis shows that a daily average of about 14.9 thousand tourists—more than half of the county's population—stayed in Cheongsong. It was found that they stayed distributed in eight eup and myeon administrative units including Cheongsong-eup, Jinbo-myeon, Pacheon-myeon and Budong-myeon, doing economic activities across Cheongsong-gun.

The age group with by far the largest increase was that of 40-to-49-year-olds.

In 2017, tourists in their forties accounted for 27 percent of the total, which was similar to the percentage of those in their fifties. In 2018, they accounted for 33.6 percent, which was much larger than the 25.3 percent of those in their fifties. It was analyzed that the reason was an increase in family-unit tourists, led by tourists in their forties.

Tourists in their 40s mostly brought their children with them, which supports the effect of the educational aspect of Cheongsong's geotourism.

Local taxes collected in Cheongsong-gun are on the rise. The revenues increased from 13.2 billion won in 2013 to 24.3 billion won in 2017. Last year, the local tax revenues amounted to 18.7 billion won—a record highexcluding the 2017 level. The government of Cheongsong-gun expects a rise in local tax revenues due to membership sales of Daemyung Resort and property taxes.

◆Cheongsong Tourism Prospering on the Strength of UNESCO

Domestic travel agencies chose the Cheongsong UNESCO Global Geopark, too.

The Korea Tourism Organization selected "Cheongsong UNESCO Global Geopark trekking" as an excellent tourism product in the local tourism product contest 2018 (foreign independent tourist (FIT) category).

More than 100 local tourism products were submitted to the contest, and only 35 among them were selected as excellent tourism products.

Cheongsong made another remarkable achievement in the best practice sharing forum on using tourism big data.

Cheongsong was the only small local town that gave a presentation at the forum. The county gave a presentation on the big data analysis of changing tourist status after its designation as a UNESCO Global Geopark, arousing empathy in the attendees.