Sokcho Mayor Lee Byung-sun said trust in the price and quality of festival food is a key factor in determining the competitiveness of local tourism. He added that he hopes the AI-based initiative launched in Sokcho will improve food price transparency at festivals nationwide and become a new standard for festival operations that satisfies both tourists and local vendors.
Sokcho has moved to build an AI- and data-driven verification system to tackle price gouging at festival venues and improve food price transparency. The city plans to compare on-site food sales data against tourist spending data to create a festival environment where visitors can enjoy themselves with confidence.
On Tuesday, the city held a working consultation meeting on building a standardized model for utilizing festival tourism data at the city hall conference room, bringing together AI and data specialists including Korea University, the Korea Tourism Organization, the Gangwon Tourism Foundation, Kakao Mobility, the Korean Food Promotion Institute and Idong-ui Jeulgeowoom.
The initiative is part of a national research and development project — "Development of Technology for Securing Tourism Data Reliability and Quality Verification" — led by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency. The overall project will run from 2026 to 2027 with a total budget of 1.8 billion won ($1.36 million). Sokcho will verify whether tourism data accurately reflects actual conditions at major festivals and apply the findings to festival operations.
In the food sector, on-site vendor data — including menus, prices, ingredients, sales volume and revenue — will be compared against tourist spending data. The city plans to establish objective criteria for managing festival food by verifying the accuracy of price and quality information against actual sales records.
The city also plans to identify signature festival dishes that reflect Sokcho's local character, while conducting parallel analysis of visitor movement patterns and traffic congestion.
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