90 people including public employees and experts in tourism development policies from 20 different countries participated
Various education such as community development experiences and field trips at YU for 8 days from the 15th to 22nd
[November 25, 2014]

YU, which is actively making efforts to share Korea's Saemaul Undong and compressed growth experience with emerging countries, conducted education on community development and tourism development policy experiences to public employees and experts on tourism policy legislations for 20 countries.

The 90 policy legislators and staff in the tourism sector from 20 countries from Asia, South America and Europe such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Laos, Bolivia, Columbia, Paraguay, Peru, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan came to YU on the 15th and took part in 'Education for Tourism Partner Country Tourism Policy Workers' for a total of 8 days that ended on the 22nd. The reason why they came to YU was to learn the community development including the Saemaul Undong that was the core driving force for Korea's explosive growth, as well as tourism, culture and economic development experiences to establish tourism development policies for the development of their home country and to search for ways to develop communities by promoting the tourism industry.

This education program sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Kim Jong-deok) and hosted by the YU International Development and Cooperation Center (Director Choi Oe Chool) and the Korean Tourism Corporation (President Byeon Chu-seok) was designed share the knowledge, technologies and experiences accumulated during Korea's community development and tourism industry development. It also aimed at providing support to help policy-makers of emerging countries to establish master plans for tourism development and the tourism industry.

Columbian Vice-minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Sandra Howard who attended said, "I am taking part in this training to examine the various cultures of Asian countries and to find new growth engines for national development by promoting the tourism industry of Columbia," and added, "I hope that we will be able to establish effective tourism policies to preserve and share Columbian culture through case studies on Korea's development experience, Saemaul Undong and various tourism industries."

At the opening ceremony for this training held at the YU Cheonma Art Center Sapphire Hall at 2 p.m. on the 15th, the training team was given an introduction on Korean culture while heading towards the training center together with traditional Korean musicians playing the traditional wind instrument called the gayageum wearing gracious traditional costumes.

Following the orientation for introducing the participating countries and main programs, YU International Development and Cooperation Center (Vice President) gave a keynote speech on 'Global Community and Saemaul Undong for Living Together' to kick off the eight-day long lectures and field exercises until the 22nd.

The training session was comprised of reports by country to share the tourism industry status and pending problems of participating nations, understanding of the Saemaul Undong, development of regional economy through the tourism industry, Korea's tourism development policy experience, lectures by experts on the Busan tourism resource development policy case and the Gyeongju Bomun Complex development case, as well as small group discussions and field trips. During the training, participants discussed the actual application of tourism, regional development, tourism development policy, and tourism industry models, and visited the Busan Haeundae Dongbaek Island and Cinema Center, and the Gyeongju Tourism Complex to actually take a look at what they studied through lectures. On the 18th they visited the YU medical Center and Daegu Haany University Oriental Medicine Hospital as a field trip on medical tourism that combines medical services with tourism products. They ended up this program with presentations and discussions on the execution plans of each of the participating countries.

International Development and Cooperation Center Director Choi Oe Chool who prepared this program said, "Countries around the world are coming up with policy plans to expand the market and increase value of the tourism industry as the new growth engine of their countries." He added, "I hope that this training allowed us to share our experiences in community development such as the Saemaul Undong that was offset by Korea's rapid growth process, as well as our experience in industrialization and tourism/culture policies in order to help strengthen the capacities of policy makers of emerging countries to establish regional development and tourism policies, and to enhance the qualitative growth capacities of the global tourism industry."

Meanwhile, YU signed an MOU for the exchange and cooperation with the Korean Tourism Corporation for the development of tourism of emerging countries at the Seoul Westin Chosun Hotel during the '2014 Culture/Tourism Creative Brand Construction Forum' that was hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and sponsored by the Korea Tourism Corporation on the 11th prior to this training. With this MOU, the two institutes agreed to work together to ▲ link the Korea Tourism Corporation's 'Development and Cooperation Project in the Tourism Sector of Emerging Countries' and YU's 'Research and Education Project for Sharing the Economical Development and Saemaul Undong Experience, ▲ global social contribution activities, and ▲ fostering of global tourism human resources.