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Mayor Park Heong-joon: “I Will Make This a Market Where People Gather” — Visits Bupyeong Kkangtong Market to Engage with Residents’ Livelihood Concerns

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that at 11:40 a.m. today (the 25th), the Mayor will visit Bupyeong Kkangtong Market in Jung-gu, tour the market, and hold a luncheon meeting with merchants as part of efforts to communicate directly on the ground.

This visit was arranged to personally review the operating conditions of Bupyeong Kkangtong Market, a representative tourism-oriented traditional market in the old downtown, and to hear on-site feedback through a meeting with merchants on restoring local commercial districts by increasing tourist visits and revitalizing stay-and-spend consumption.

On the day, the Mayor will follow the market’s main routes to visit stores, assess the business atmosphere and visitor trends, and encourage merchants. At the luncheon meeting held at a nearby restaurant, the City plans to listen to difficulties related to overall operations of a tourism-oriented traditional market.

Bupyeong Kkangtong Market operates as a daily-life traditional market during the day and as a tourism-oriented market at night centered on its night market, attracting young people and international visitors. Since opening the nation’s first permanent night market in 2013, it has been recognized as a representative case in which food-focused nighttime content combined with old-downtown tourism routes has activated stay-and-spend consumption.

Recently, tourism in Busan’s old downtown has shown a clear trend of visiting the “Gukje Market–Jagalchi Market–BIFF Square” route in a single day while enjoying both food and shopping, and Bupyeong Kkangtong Market serves as a key hub on this visitor route.

In particular, with increased visits by younger people following the night market’s launch, traditional markets are evolving beyond spaces mainly for middle-aged and older customers into combined living-and-tourism spaces visited by families, young people, and tourists alike.

A wide variety of food options and the nighttime atmosphere naturally lead to longer stays and higher spending, breathing vitality into the market as a whole.

As tourism-oriented traditional markets have established themselves as major hubs for local consumption, Busan Metropolitan City plans to improve visitor convenience and conditions for longer stays based on on-site feedback from merchants and citizens, strengthen support for linking content suited to each market’s characteristics and for promoting consumption, and continue creating a market environment where residents and tourists naturally stay longer.

Mayor Park Heong-joon is expected to say, “Traditional markets are the starting point of the local economy and the place where tourism and consumer spending meet,” adding, “We will reflect the voices from the field in our policies so the market becomes a place where people gather and spending continues, and we will do our utmost to provide support that is genuinely helpful to merchants.”