Lawmaker urges verification of investment returns for Nodeul Global Arts Island project
Performance evaluation should center on visitor growth and repeat-visit rates, not construction progress
Annual visitors to Seoullo 7017 fell 20% over three years
'Citizen-felt outcomes matter more than completion rates'
Lawmaker calls for metrics on length of stay and commercial district vitality
A Seoul Metropolitan Council lawmaker has called on the city government to rigorously verify the real-world returns on its 451.2 billion won ($332 million) Nodeul Global Arts Island project, arguing that the performance of large-scale landmark developments should be measured not by construction completion rates but by indicators citizens can actually feel — visitor growth, repeat-visit rates, length of stay and the vitality of surrounding commercial districts.
Oh Jung-seok, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the council's Housing and Space Committee representing Dongdaemun-gu, raised the issue Friday at an administrative audit of the Future Space Planning Bureau during the 340th regular session, urging the city to examine its performance management framework for landmark projects and verify their effectiveness in attracting tourists and generating economic ripple effects commensurate with the scale of public spending.
"A landmark should be judged not by its completion rate but by how many people come back," Oh said, calling for a shift away from the existing evaluation approach — which focuses on project execution milestones — toward assessments centered on actual usage demand and the long-term sustainability of each space.
Oh particularly cited the Nodeul Island waterfront cultural space, which opened Sept. 18 and drew about 104,000 visitors in its first 11 days, arguing that evaluating the impact of a new space requires analyzing how people use it, not just how many show up.
According to the 2026 performance indicators submitted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the Nodeul Global Arts Island and Songhyeon Cultural Park are measured by their development progress rate, the Yongsan International Business District by its project advancement rate, and Fun Station by the number of space-planning cases completed.
Notably absent are indicators that would reveal how spaces are actually being used — repeat-visit rates, average length of stay, and the proportion of out-of-town and foreign visitors.
Oh said the city needs to determine how many of the 104,000 Nodeul Island visitors came from outside Seoul or from abroad, and what share returned for a second visit, pointing to the limits of a performance management system that does little more than tally raw visitor counts.
The investment efficiency of large landmark projects also came under scrutiny.
Data presented by Oh showed that the Seoul Lantern Festival in 2022 and 2023 drew more than 1 million visitors at an event cost of 1.07 billion won — roughly 1,070 won per visitor. By comparison, the Seoul Light DDP event in autumn 2023 cost about 2,320 won per visitor, while the Han River Light Island Festival the same year came to about 27,000 won per visitor.
For Nodeul Island's permanent complex cultural space, built in 2019 at a cost of 58.3 billion won, the per-visitor investment worked out to about 39,000 won based on annual attendance of 1.5 million.
The Nodeul Global Arts Island, with a total project cost of 451.2 billion won, fares far worse by this measure: even if annual visitors reach the city's projected 5.57 million, the additional investment cost per visitor drawn in beyond the existing baseline would come to about 111,000 won.
That is roughly 2.9 times the per-visitor construction cost of the 2019 Nodeul Island complex. Oh noted, however, that event operating costs and permanent facility construction costs differ in nature and in the time horizon over which their effects materialize, and that the comparison is better used as a reference for gauging the scale of investment than as a direct economic efficiency benchmark.
Oh also cited the declining visitor trend at Seoullo 7017 as supporting evidence. Annual visitors to the elevated walkway, built at a cost of 59.7 billion won, fell from 7.54 million in 2022 to 6.03 million in 2025 — a drop of roughly 20 percent.
The implication is that even a landmark built at enormous public expense can lose its draw over time if it is not backed by a sustained content strategy and operational plan capable of bringing people back.
Oh also drew comparisons with overseas cultural and tourism destinations.
Oh cited Japan's Setouchi Triennale, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and France's Fête des Lumières in Lyon, arguing that Seoul should weigh the merits of concentrating its budget in a single large facility against a distributed tourism model that leverages existing cultural heritage and regional hubs.
The Setouchi Triennale drew about 1.178 million visitors across 12 islands in 2019, while the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale attracted about 546,000 visitors across 99 villages in 2024. The Lyon festival draws more than 2 million visitors annually.
The combined cost of the 10 overseas landmark cases Oh presented came to about 75.9 billion won — roughly one-sixth of the total project cost of the Nodeul Global Arts Island. Oh acknowledged, however, that the figures for individual overseas cases mix event budgets, annual operating costs and total project costs, making a like-for-like investment comparison difficult.
Nodeul Island received 58.3 billion won for its complex cultural space in 2019, and a separate 451.2 billion won arts island project has been under way from 2023 through 2030. Oh said the city must present concrete evidence that this additional investment will translate into real gains in visitor numbers and local economic activity.
To that end, Oh called on the city to incorporate repeat-visit rates, length of stay, the share of out-of-town and foreign visitors, and the impact on surrounding commercial districts into its landmark performance indicators. Oh also urged the city to submit target visitor figures and per-visitor investment costs to the council before major projects break ground, and to report separately on the budgets of projects that operate only briefly before closing.
"A landmark has to make people come back, build a commercial district and keep money circulating," Oh said. "The city must first explain how many additional visitors 451.2 billion won is expected to bring in — and on what basis."
7toy7@heraldcorp.com
