South Korea eyes FIFA World Cup Qatar to boost its tourism sector

South Korea is maximising Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to attract visitors to the East Asian nation and boost its tourism industry, according to the Korea National Tourism Organisation (KTO).KTO will be organising the ‘Travel to Korea, Cheer Together!’ event from November 20 to 25 at the Corniche as part of World Cup-related activations being held there and to celebrate the return of travel to South Korea, said KTO regional director Hyunsan Hong. It can be recalled that the Government Communications Office previously announced that from November 1 to December 19, the Doha Corniche remains closed to vehicular traffic and is allocated for pedestrians only as part of preparations for the FIFA World Cup.“The event is organised by KTO during World Cup Qatar 2022, which is the first World Cup hosted in the Middle East, and with that comes the chance to attract GCC nationals and World Cup visitors from all around the world to reboot and promote tourism in Korea after fully reopening in October 2022,” Hong told Gulf Times in an invitation letter to the ‘Travel to Korea, Cheer Together!’ event. He said the event will showcase different cultural experiences and performances and will offer tourism information and entertaining activities, such as traditional clothes experience (Hanbok), South Korean crafts, taekwondo performance, calligraphy performance, AR Trick Eye experience, and K-Pop performances.Aside from cultural exchange and the tourism industry, South Korea has been actively organising dialogue and forums between the public and private sectors of both countries, as well as sending different South Korean delegations to Doha to further enhance its relations with Qatar in a wide range of sectors.During the recently held ‘2022 South Korea-Qatar Business Forum’ held last month in Doha, South Korean ambassador Lee Joon-ho, called for the expansion of South Korea-Qatar economic co-operation.The ambassador emphasised the need for South Korea and Qatar to expand co-operation ties to “a new horizon” and establish a close partnership in various fields like digital technology, healthcare, smart-farm, renewable energy, and finance.During the forum, Mohamed Hassen al-Malki, Deputy Undersecretary for Industrial Affairs at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, called for joint efforts to expand Qatar-South Korea strategic co-operation and include new and diverse sectors, such as health and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).“In this context, we praise the advanced level of trade exchange between our two nations. Qatar-South Korea trade exchange has grown by 67.2% compared to 2020. It reached $11.57bn in 2021 and $5.98bn in the first five months of this year,” al-Malki said.Also in October, several key South Korean firms specialising in agriculture and smart farming presented solutions that could assist Qatar in its food security and self-sufficiency initiatives.These solutions were raised during the ‘Qatar-Korea Smart Farm Initiative Seminar’ held in Doha through the collaboration of the South Korean embassy in Qatar, the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), and the Ministry of Municipality.