With the enforcement of the Healing Tourism Industry Act, the promotion of "K-Wellness Tourism" is now in full swing. However, the Chungcheong region faces a pressing challenge: securing competitiveness in attracting international tourists.

This reality became apparent when none of the region's eight certified wellness tourism spots were selected for the government's newly announced "Top 20 Wellness Tourism Destinations Specialized in Attracting Foreign Visitors."

According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) on the 7th, the two organizations evaluated 88 existing certified wellness spots this year based on their foreign visitor attraction capabilities and program operations, ultimately selecting the top 20.

The selected destinations were largely concentrated in regions linked to international airports or major metropolitan tourism hubs, including Seoul, Incheon, Busan, Daegu, Gangwon, and Jeju.

A significant number of the chosen sites emphasized professional expertise and personalization. These included hotels equipped with medical infrastructure, traditional Korean medicine (Hanbang) facilities operated by professionals offering prescriptive programs, and resorts providing customized programs based on individual health measurements.

Neither Daejeon nor Sejong managed to secure a spot even among the 88 existing certified wellness destinations.

While South Chungcheong Province (including Paradise Spa Dogo) and North Chungcheong Province (including the National Jecheon Healing Forest) had three and five locations respectively included in the existing certified list, none crossed the threshold to enter this new top 20 ranking.

However, this shortfall cannot be blamed solely on a lack of resources.

Daejeon boasts medical and scientific infrastructure, while Sejong features gardens and urban rest spaces. South Chungcheong's strengths lie in its seas and hot springs, and North Chungcheong excels in forests, traditional medicine, and meditation resources.

In particular, North Chungcheong has built a solid foundation by repeatedly winning selections in the MCST’s Wellness Tourism Cluster competition.

The core issue lies in the capacity to connect individual resources into cohesive packages that foreign tourists can actually book and stay for. Experts point out that because forest trails, hot springs, Hanbang experiences, and marine healing programs are operated separately by region, the structural linkage to lodging, food and beverage, transportation, and local commercial consumption remains weak.

Demonstrating program efficacy, professional staffing, and operational reliability—factors crucial for foreign tourists when selecting healing facilities—also remains a key task.

Consequently, voices are growing louder for a shift away from region-by-region promotional approaches toward the creation of flagship, stay-type programs that can represent the entire Chungcheong region.

As an alternative, a "Seoul Treatment, Chungcheong Recovery" travel route has been proposed. Under this model, foreign visitors who receive procedures or medical treatments in Seoul—where 87.2% of the 2.01 million foreign patients visiting South Korea last year sought care—would travel about an hour by high-speed rail to stay in the Chungcheong region for recovery.

Experts also emphasize the necessity of establishing multilingual reservation and guidance systems, alongside overseas sales networks, to seamlessly support the entire customer journey from information gathering and booking to transit and lodging.

To convert wellness tourism destinations into actual visits and spending, the region must establish a complete pathway that allows foreign tourists to find information, make reservations, and comfortably stay in the area.

"Missing out on this top 20 list should not be interpreted as a lack of healing resources, but rather as an area for improvement in materializing good resources into concrete products that foreign visitors can easily find, book, and stay for," said Jang Jae-hyeop, a professor of Tourism Management at National Gongju University. "Future competitiveness will depend on how clearly and attractively we can communicate to foreigners why they should visit these places."

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]