What is Seoul shopping hub’s secret sauce? Tourists’ love of K-dramas and K-pop
- Myeong-dong in Seoul is flourishing again with the return of foreign travellers, with many citing their love of K-dramas and K-pop as reasons to visit the area
- Tourists have accounted for 73 per cent of sales at the Myeong-dong stores of CJ Olive Young, Korea’s largest drug store franchise, this month
By Lee Hae-rin
Myeong-dong, the iconic shopping and tourism district in South Korea’s capital Seoul, is flourishing again with the return of foreign travellers, driven by their love for Korean culture, dramas and cosmetics.
Kai Diaz, a 26-year-old American, said in Myeong-dong that she had made a list during the pandemic of things she wanted to do based on her favourite Korean drama and YouTube, Facebook and TikTok channels.
A “huge K-drama fan”, Diaz said her favourite Korean series triggered her interest in K-beauty and prompted her to look for skincare products to take home on the last day of her five-day visit.
“There’s not a lot of good ones back where I am from [Nevada, in the United States]. Even if there was, it’s either too expensive or you have to order it online,” she said, adding that she would return to Korea to explore more of its culture and visit areas beyond the capital, such as Busan and Jeju Island.
This week, Myeong-dong was crowded with tourists shopping. Cosmetics and clothing stores that were closed during the coronavirus pandemic were open again and the streets were filled with international travellers carrying shopping bags and street food.
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It was a sharp contrast to the pandemic-hit ghost-town atmosphere of a few months ago.
CJ Olive Young, Korea’s largest drug store franchise, with more than 1,300 branches nationwide, said that sales generated by tourists at five of its stores in Myeong-dong saw a 29-fold jump for the March 1 to 17 period, compared with the same period in 2022.
Tourists – primarily from Southeast Asia, Japan, the Americas and China, in order of percentage – account for a growing proportion of sales, the company’s data shows.
Tourists have accounted for 73 per cent of sales at the Myeong-dong stores this month.
Apart from Diaz, several other tourists interviewed said their motivation to travel Korea and visit Myeong-dong was their interest in Korean culture, including dramas, K-pop and YouTube content.
The easing of travel regulations and lifting of PCR testing mandates on foreign arrivals have also facilitated an influx of international travellers and revitalised the shopping district, according to the company’s analysis.
However, mainland Chinese, who accounted for more than one-third of visitors to Myeong-dong before the Covid-19 pandemic, have yet to come, according to the district’s business owners.
“We [street vendors] feel that Chinese travellers haven’t come back in earnest yet,” said Lee Kang-soo, the manager of the Myeong-dong vendors’ union.
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“You can occasionally hear the Chinese language spoken on the street, but they are mostly from Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan.”
Many Chinese travellers planning to visit Korea were still waiting for their tourist visas to be issued and Myeong-dong expected even more tourist traffic over time, Lee explained.
Meanwhile, the Seoul Metropolitan Police launched a six-week crackdown on unregistered accommodation on Monday, to “prevent and regulate crimes targeting tourists”.
