'Joseon Social Club' in Chungju targets international tourists

Event reinterprets local heritage to generate demand from foreign visitors

Participants' posts go viral on global social media

Foreign participants wearing hanbok at the Joseon Social Club Chungju Edition event [Eazpmp]
Foreign participants wearing hanbok at the Joseon Social Club Chungju Edition event [Eazpmp]

Content created by 200 foreign visitors to Chungju has drawn significant attention online, accumulating more than 370,000 views on global social media platforms.

Eazpmp announced Thursday that 200 participants from 32 countries took part in "Joseon Social Club Chungju Edition," a tourism product for international visitors held Oct. 3-4 in and around Chungju. Organized in partnership with the North Chungcheong Province Cultural Foundation, the event was part of an on-site program under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's Chungcheong Confucian Culture Tourism Promotion Project. It combined existing local Confucian heritage with contemporary content to design a travel itinerary.

During the day, participants tried traditional archery at a bow range, practiced calligraphy at Chungju Hyanggyo and brewed traditional liquor at Jungwondang. At night, they gathered near Jungang Tower dressed in hanbok and gat — traditional Korean hats — to enjoy an afterparty featuring gugak EDM music alongside Chungju Cheongmyeongju, a local traditional liquor.

Foreign participants in hanbok at the afterparty for the Joseon Social Club Chungju Edition [Eazpmp]
Foreign participants in hanbok at the afterparty for the Joseon Social Club Chungju Edition [Eazpmp]

Eazpmp, which operated the event, selected 200 participants from 352 applicants through its Korea Experience platform and provided on-site support via Guide Kim, a digital guidance system available in eight languages. The roughly 150 posts participants uploaded to Instagram, TikTok, Xiaohongshu and Reddit accumulated about 370,000 views, around 17,000 likes, about 2,000 shares and roughly 500 comments.

Vu Thi Hoa, a participant from Vietnam, said she was particularly struck by brewing traditional liquor at Jungwondang, a venue with more than a century of history, and by wearing hanbok to take in the traditional atmosphere. "It was even more fun to enjoy a DJ performance in a traditional space, where the old and the new blended together so naturally," she said.

Eazpmp plans to analyze participant behavior patterns and online response data collected through its glocal tourism data portal and incorporate the findings into the design of future products. The company also intends to launch a community for first-cohort participants within the Korea Experience platform before the end of the year, and to expand into a business-to-government tourism model targeting local governments, combining region-specific themes such as running, wellness and gastronomy.

Choi Hak-chan, chief creative officer of Eazpmp, said what regions need is not new facilities but a reason for foreign visitors to come. "The strength of Joseon Social Club lies in reinterpreting Chungju's existing resources through a contemporary sensibility and connecting them to purchasable products and global content," he said.


terry@heraldcorp.com