Staff Reporter
At 7 p.m. on Dec. 22 at the Grand Hilton Hotel in Seoul, rooms were filled with round tables where people, mostly women, sat and waited.
Soon, they began cheering - TV actor and singer Kim Jung-hoon appeared with a smile and talked to his "fans."
At a fan meeting dubbed "Sweet X-Mas with Kim Jung-hoon," Kim, who already has a steady fan base with hit drama Goong and his elite image as a top Seoul National University student, greeted more than 300 fans.
But for the tourists, it was more than seeing their star for couple of hours - they got to tour around Seoul and have some duty free shopping, as well as receiving high-end services from a top-class hotel. The three-day 124,000 yen (1.82 million won) item was a hit.
"It was a win-win situation. The entertainer did not have to care too much about how to collect fans and the tourists agencies had a solid chance to provide an opportunity to meet the star,’’ Park Seo-Young, a Seoul Tourism Organization staff member, said. Her company was established and is supported by Seoul city government.
The city is in fact holding several more events. Kim's meeting was the second of a kind following that of actor Kang Ji-hwan, who gained fame after a series of his dramas were exported to Japan.
On Wednesday, the last day of 2008, about 700 gathered to see M, or Minwoo from pop group Shinhwa, in concert. This time, it wasn’t just for Japanese fans only, but for people from all over Asia, where his sex appeal works on tens of thousands.
The fans got to do a New Year countdown with their favorite stars and welcomed the New Year. The star from time to time spoke in English or Japanese for his foreign fans, while all sang along and danced till late into the night at a Yonsei University hall before returning to their hotel in rented buses.
These events have been organized as part of an effort to induce Japanese tourists searching for Hallyu (Korean culture wave) stars amid the global economic meltdown. Through them, the tourism account is fianally seeing some black owing to weakening won, experts say. It is time for the city to take a more aggressive approach to attracting more tourists to see Seoul and its pop culture, Park said.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon has been quite aggressive on the issue, too. He has recently designated actor Daniel Henney to become a cultural ambassador to promote the global cultural aspects of Korea. "We all understand that these stars have huge influence in the tourism industry," he said.
Credits: bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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