Role of the National Tourist Office

In 1986 Korea attracted 1,659,972 tourists and earned 1.55 billion dollars largely owing to the success of the Asian Games and publicity as host country of the 1988 Summer Olympics.
This year, tourist arrivals and receipts are expected to reach 1.8 million and 2 billion dollars respectively. 1986 was the first year that Korea had a trade surplus in its history and tourist earnings contributed a lot to this trade surplus.
However, tourists did not walk into our country just because of the Asian Games and because of the publicity for the '88 Olympics. There have been marketing efforts by the national tourist office to attract more foreign tourists into our country in the same way that there has been a marketing effort in the export of tourist.
Moreover, tourism has a significant impact upon destination country. The multiplier effect of tourist spendings is much larger than that earned from the exporting of goods.
For example, a 1,000-dollar initial expenditure into the destination can be multiplied by as much as up to 3,000 dollars.
Let's say that a 1,000-dollar expenditure is received as income by local tour operators, handicrafts store owners, hoteliers, and taxicab drivers. In the first round of transactions, a hotelier may use some money received to buy supplies and pay wages.
In the second round the employee who has received payment for services rendered may spend some of that on rent and food.
The money spent on supplies in the third round of expending, goes to things such as seed and fertilizer.
Foreign tourist arrivals are also expediting local community development and can generate new jobs for unskilled employees.
So, many developing countries are investing a lot of their budget into winning the competition of this invisible trade war so as to aid their country's economic growth.
In recognition of these benefits from tourism, there are over a hundred foreign tourist offices in New York to attract more American tourists to each destination.
Many countries such as Australia, Israel, Canada, Mexico, Singapore and the Caribbean counties are pouring money into the U.S. travel market by TV advertising by radio, newspaper and magazine.
As American tourists to the United Kingdom were drastically reduced in late 1985 because of terrorism, even Prime Minister Thatcher herself appeared on American TV soliciting American tourists to come to Great Britain.
The United states, suffering from a trade deficit, also launched a worldwide P.R. campaign to maximize her tourists‘s receipts and to promote a friendly understanding and appreciation of America.
The Reagan administration proposed to impose new fees on air travel and cruise lines in order to finance the United States Travel and Tourism Administration(USTTA), the marketing body of U.S. tourism to the overseas countries. The "travel Promotion Act of 1987" would collect a $1 travel promotion fee for travellers arriving in the U.S. on a commercial airline or passenger ship.
In an effort to change Americans' image of Canada, the Canadian government operates 14 tourist offices throughout the United States and implemented an advertising campaign of 20 million dollars.
Represented by the Korea National Tourism Corp., the state-run tourist office, Korea is operating three tourist offices in the United States; in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Each week, KNTC's New York office receives hundreds if telephone calls and letters from people inquiring about Korea.
As the 1988 Summer Olympics approaches, many of those inquires are from people asking information about the Olympics.
Because Korea has been known as a "Shoppers Paradise"since the successful hosting of the American Society of Travel Agents(ASTA) in 1983, inquires on shopping in Korea are also escalating day by day .
A national tourist office is officially responsible for developing and marketing tourism of a country.
The promotion a activities of a national tourist office can be divided into those activities aimed at the travel trade and those which are aimed at the consumer.
In order to inform the travel trade and familiarize it with the tourist attractions of its country, a national tourist office organizes educational tours for selected tour operators and travel agents who can sell the country as a tourist destination more easily.
During these tours, the foreign travel wholesalers and retailers inspect the country's tourist facilities with the local travel trade, which acts as their partner in channeling tourist traffic to the country.
Sales seminars are also organized by a national tourist office in order to familiarize the travel trade with the tourist attraction and the latest developments in the tourist industry and to motivate it to increase sales of tours and to encourage travel to the country.
Sales calls are also made by its staff to travel agents and other retail outlets. The aim of such calls is to assist the travel retailers in selling the country by providing them with information, advice, promotional materials.
Direct mailing of tourist literature, newsletters and bulletins are carried out as part of its promotional efforts.
Promotional evenings are occasionally organized for members of the travel trade. They are usually staged in hotels or similar establishments and combine food, drink and entertainment.
A small portion of inquiries received by a national tourist office originates from returning tourists and concerns the widest possible range of subjects, including complaints and praise.
Thus, a national tourist office abroad has to carry out a kind of customer relations function.
Participation in tourism fairs and exhibitions is done with decorated booth that present the tourist attractions of the country.
Here, a tourist office aims at contacting large numbers of potential tourists in order to inform them about the tourist attractions of its country and to persuade them to travel there.
In doing so, the tourist office distributes relatively large quantities of tourist literature to interest people. Although travel advertising is very important, it is very costly, Therefore public relations has become the most important marketing function. An effective campaign aimed at either the travel trade or the consumer requires the effective utilization of the media. Establishing good relationships with the press is a crucial step toward a successful public relations campaign.
A large amount of literature is produced by the tourist office to support the marketing effort.
Because of the large quantity of information requested, and because of rising costs of postage, tourist literature tends to be a smaller and standardized folder.
The missions of the national tourist office can't be done by the embassy and consulate or private establishments such as travel, advertising and P.R. companies.
In the past attempting to reduce the costs of marketing, some countries used their own embassies and consulates to house those involved in the marketing effort.
But this strategy didn't work.
The functions of both the political and marketing groups seem to be too dissimilar. The necessary expertise for tourism marketing is lacking in the embassy group, and the necessary contacts in the trade press are different for both the marketing and political groups.
The trade press in an overseas market prefers to deal with a professionally staffed marketing office.
Promotional activities of a national tourist office. could hardly be taken care of by private organizations. As I mentioned above, most promotional activities are very costly and not profitable at all. Private organizations can only make business on the market that national tourist office has developed. Some people are insisting that a lot of tourists will rush into our country after the Summer Olympics in 1988, and the role of the national tourist office bel reduced or will be unnecessary.
However, those arguments definitely are not true at all and I strongly believe that more marketing effort is needed and promotional budgets must be fortified to recollect all the spendings for the preparation of the Olympics such as tourist receipts.<Thoughts of the Times. Nov. 24, 1987>