Korea targets biz from youth

KTO concluded its multi-city sales mission at Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Hyderabad, where Young Geul Choi, Director, KTO India, said they will be focussing on young generation, including students and women.

Nisha Verma

The roadshow at Hyderabad was a part of a multi-city sales mission, starting off in Ahmedabad, going to Bengaluru before ending in Hyderabad. The event in Ahmedabad was organised in association with OTOAI, while the two events in Bengaluru and Hyderabad were held in association with SKAL India. The Chief Guest for the Hyderabad sales-mission was Suresh Chukkapalli, Honorary Consul General of Republic of Korea in Hyderabad.

South Korea opened for Indian tourists in October only. “As of now around 30-40 per cent tourism has recovered for South Korea, as compared to 2019. Our goal for next year is to recover fully by December 2023,” said Young Geul Choi, Director, KTO India.

Speaking on South India market, he shared, “Before COVID the awareness about South Korea was not pan India. Only some people knew about it and we only focused on metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and sometimes Chennai. However, K-pop and K-drama was so popular globally and India, especially amongst the youngsters and women, that we are going to focus on young generation — not just students, but also people in their 20s-30s and young women. Apart from that, luxury is our main focus and premium HNIs will be one of our target customers as a lot of awareness about Korea has been created. I know that in South India, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad are premium markets and there is a need for packages for high-end HNI customers. Hence, we are going to target that.”

Next year, they will organise a B2C event to showcase Korea’s culture like K-pop. “We want to show how well the Korea culture is popular in India. Everybody knows about Korea, but we want them to experience it on site together. Although, this is still in plan,” said Choi.

Talking about 2022, he said that all information has changed in the last one year.