Busan is good

Busan Metropolitan City Listens to Foreign Tourists on the Ground to Enhance Visitor Satisfaction

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Busan Metropolitan City, led by Mayor Chun Jae-soo, announced that it conducted one-on-one in-depth interviews with foreign tourists at major tourist attractions across the city to closely listen to their firsthand experiences and respond promptly to inconveniences encountered while traveling.

Until now, Busan Metropolitan City has identified tourism trends and visitor satisfaction through statistics-based quantitative surveys and big-data analysis using sources such as credit card and telecommunications data. This marks the first time, however, that the city has met tourists directly in the field to examine their views and responses in depth.

The 2026 Survey on Foreign Tourists Visiting Busan is currently being conducted among 3,600 domestic and international tourists.

The interviews were conducted from August 22 to 24 at major locations in Busan, including Haeundae Beach, Gamcheon Culture Village, and Yongdusan Park. A total of 34 foreign tourists from a range of countries and regions, including China, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, and North America, participated. The group consisted of 15 respondents in the East Busan area, 10 in the old downtown area, and nine in the West Busan area, with each interview lasting approximately 30 minutes.

Participants included 21 tourists from Greater China and Japan and 13 tourists from Europe and North America, including Germany, France, Italy, and Canada. They were recruited through on-site outreach at tourist attractions and applications from guests staying at nearby guesthouses.

Regardless of nationality, participants generally gave positive assessments of Busan’s tourism offerings, including its natural environment where the sea and mountains come together, its vibrant urban atmosphere, and its diverse culinary experiences.

In particular, many identified the friendliness of local residents they encountered during their trip as Busan’s greatest attraction and a key reason to visit again, indicating that the people of Busan themselves are one of the city’s core tourism assets.

At the same time, participants commonly pointed to a shortage of public trash bins and difficulties using credit cards at some businesses, including traditional markets. Clear differences also emerged by nationality and region, confirming the need for tailored improvements.

Among tourists from Greater China, strong interest in longer stays, such as month-long visits, was accompanied by specific requests concerning transportation, payment, and mobile services for everyday life. Key suggestions included multilingual taxi reservation and vacancy-status information, wider acceptance of WeChat Pay and Alipay, improvements to verification systems so foreign visitors can use public bicycles, and easier access to food-delivery and restaurant-reservation apps.

Japanese tourists mainly called for improvements in cleanliness and sanitation, citing issues such as odors and cleanliness at public restrooms near major tourist attractions, cigarette butts around restaurants, and sewer odors in the Seomyeon area.

Tourists from Europe, North America, and other regions cited insufficient Busan tourism information on Google Maps and a lack of useful travel information, including relatively low awareness of the VISIT BUSAN PASS compared with tourists from Greater China, as major inconveniences.

Busan Metropolitan City plans to promptly share the inconveniences identified through the in-depth interviews with relevant departments responsible for areas such as transportation, the environment, and the economy, as well as district and county offices, and to improve visitor services through measures that tourists can directly experience.

In particular, once the third supplementary budget is finalized following review by the city council, Busan Metropolitan City plans to work with district and county offices to quickly address issues that can be resolved immediately, such as installing trash bins at tourist attractions.

For matters requiring longer-term review, the city will work across departments to determine the feasibility of improvements and possible support measures. Issues requiring support from the tourism sector will be actively linked with relevant projects and managed on an ongoing basis.

If the effectiveness of the survey is confirmed, Busan Metropolitan City plans to conduct the in-depth interviews regularly beginning next year and develop them into a continuous monitoring system.

Mayor Chun Jae-soo said, “Until now, we have focused on quantitative growth centered on the number of tourists. It is now time to focus on the quality of the visitor experience by looking at how satisfied and inspired each traveler is during their stay in Busan.”

He added, “We will listen directly to the vivid voices from the field that quantitative data could not fully capture, build on what visitors liked, and address inconveniences one by one. Our goal is to make Busan not a place people visit only once, but a destination they want to return to.”