Residents of Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul, South Korea, convened a meeting on October 20, 2024, to address issues arising from the surge in tourism to their community, as reported by Reuters.

Nestled deep within South Korea's countryside is Sunshine Land, a meticulously recreated 1900s Seoul, serving as the newest K-drama theme park capitalizing on the burgeoning K-culture tourism. Fans of the globally renowned K-pop group BTS have long journeyed to South Korea to visit sites linked to the band, ranging from their trainee dorms to recent music video locations. However, as South Korean dramas have gained immense popularity overseas—leading as the most-watched non-English content on Netflix, according to the platform's data—an increasing number of tourists are basing their trips around their favorite shows.

Tour guide Sophy Yoon initially found the notion of foreign tourists traveling hundreds of miles from Seoul to visit a K-drama set 'crazy'—until witnessing one of her guests overcome with emotion at Sunshine Land. 'At that moment, it struck me: For me, it was just a studio, but for them, it was something much more,' she recounted. The site in Nonsan, 170 kilometers from Seoul, meticulously replicates everything from a turn-of-the-century tram to South Korea's most famous Buddhist bell, preserved from the set of the popular 2018 historical series 'Mr Sunshine.'

Yoon compared this to visiting the Spanish steps in Rome, where Audrey Hepburn enjoyed ice cream in the 1953 classic 'Roman Holiday.' For South Korea's growing number of K-drama tourists, 'every door, every wall has a meaning from a drama that impacted their lives.' 'I get a lot more requests for specific 'K-drama tours' now,' she noted. Kwak Jae-yeon, the Hallyu content team director at the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), attributed South Korea's rise as a global cultural powerhouse to enhancing the appeal of Korean tourism.

In September, South Korea welcomed 1.4 million tourists, a 33 percent year-on-year increase and the highest since the pandemic, with over a third citing exposure to Korean Wave content as their reason for visiting, according to a 2023 KTO poll. In Seoul's central Jongno district, tourists like Sookariyapa Kakij, who traveled from Thailand wearing a hanbok, are common. Kakij specifically sought locations where the popular 2020 drama 'Itaewon Class' was filmed.

Jennifer Zelinski, who had never traveled outside the United States before discovering K-drama through the 2019 series 'Crash Landing on You,' decided to visit South Korea during the pandemic. 'I binged the whole show in a week. I barely slept and went through two whole boxes of tissues,' she said. This led her to watch more K-dramas, Korean variety shows, and listen to K-pop, culminating in a desire to experience it all in person. 'My family and friends were shocked when I said I was traveling to Korea and on my own,' Zelinski said, but for her, 'it just felt right.'

The travel industry is rapidly adapting: a South Korean tour company on the travel platform Klook reported a 'skyrocketing' interest in its BTS day tour, with bookings fully booked until next February. They plan to add tours for other K-pop idol groups, including Seventeen and NCT 127. However, most of this new tourism is concentrated in Seoul. Jeong Ji-youn, a professor at Kyungpook National University, noted that rural tourism has traditionally focused on more conventional Korean experiences, which do not appeal to younger travelers eager to explore K-pop and K-drama.

There is a need to develop more tourism resources related to contemporary culture that allow people to experience hallyu outside of Seoul, she emphasized. The port city of Pohang, known more for shipbuilding and steel plants than tourism, attracted Emma Brown, 30, from Scotland, who traveled over 8,800 kilometers to visit because of the 2019 romance series 'When the Camellia Blooms.' 'The series changed my life,' she said, adding that she felt compelled to experience the drama in person. 'I just couldn't miss the opportunity to visit Pohang when I was already in South Korea,' she concluded.

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