Culture Marketing for an Urban Tourist Attraction by Local Government: Acase Study of Hanok Village in Jeonju, Korea

Hanok(Korean traditional house) village of Jeonju city became one of the most attractive tourist sites during less than 15 years. The number of visitors to the Hanok village was less than 100,000 in 1999, but the number reached over 6,000,000 in 2014. Jeonju Hanok village has become the hottest tour attraction not only for traditional Korean culture and life but also for food eating. To attract more tourists, Jeonju city has done various marketing for Hanok village. This paper focuses on how Jeonju city government has done its cultural marketing to propagate the good images and news of Hanok village to all over Korea. One is to organized festivals and events. The city government also invited news reporters, teachers, scholars and public figures to the site. The government excavated stories of the area and spreaded them to the press. The government also induced drama and film shooting in the site. The image of Jeonju Hanok village has spreaded Korea successfully during the last 15 years. The government also has organized international cultural marketing. Non-traditional images of tourists in Hanok village go viral online and many specialists worry that these online photos with street food may erode the authenticity of Hanok village. The image war is going on between the city government, its photos, informations, and published materials on the one side, and the young generation who consume Hanok village with street foods and new plays, their photos of street foods, and other photos of various new plays such as with costume characters on the wins this war or how new style can emerge