The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization are holding the 2026 Korea Tourism Data Lab Competition through Sept. 30. The event aims to generate practical results from big data and spread a field-oriented data culture across the tourism industry.
Entries should showcase achievements made using data from the Korea Tourism Data Lab, with cross-sector cases that combine tourism data with data from other fields also eligible. Anyone who uses the Data Lab may enter as an individual, a team of up to four people, or an institution. Accepted submissions can cover a wide range of applications, including festival promotion strategies based on analysis of regional visitor characteristics and local commercial district revitalization strategies derived from tourist spending patterns.
Applications must be submitted by 2 p.m. on Sept. 30 through the online form linked in the contest announcement on the Data Lab website. A total of 19 entries will be recognized following document and presentation reviews. The grand prize — the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award — carries a cash prize of 5 million won ($3,500) and goes to one winner. Two runners-up selected by the Korea Tourism Organization president each receive 2 million won; six merit award winners each receive 1 million won; and 10 encouragement award winners each receive 500,000 won. The awards ceremony is scheduled for Oct. 23 in Seoul.
Lee Mi-suk, head of the Korea Tourism Organization's Tourism Data Hub team, said the Data Lab's average monthly visitors in the first half of this year rose 23.6 percent from last year to about 780,000, pushing cumulative visitors past 5 million, while media citations more than doubled over the same period. "We hope the outstanding cases uncovered through this competition will be shared more widely on the ground and lead to improved competitiveness across the tourism industry as a whole," she said.
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