A McDonald's outlet appeared as the top local restaurant recommendation for Seoul on a tourism information site run by the Korea Tourism Organization, prompting questions at a parliamentary audit about the quality of the state agency's travel information. Lawmakers also faulted weak government support for technology development at domestic travel platforms and gaps in tracking the training records of tourist guides, calling for an overhaul of how the organization provides information and supports the tourism industry.
At an audit of the Korea Tourism Organization by the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee on the 14th, Rep. Choi Min-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea questioned the restaurant recommendations listed by region on the organization's "Korea Tour" website.
Choi said the site, which draws more than 50 million visitors a year, listed a McDonald's branch in Samseong-dong as the top restaurant representing local character in Seoul. She said McDonald's outlets also ranked near the top of restaurant recommendations in other regions, including Ulsan and Incheon.
"Isn't the original purpose to introduce distinctive restaurants and attractions in each region?" Choi said, questioning the organization's approach to providing information.
Park Sung-hyuk, president of the Korea Tourism Organization, said drive-through outlets had been included among the recommendations as a result of using navigation data from TMAP. He said the organization had taken steps to treat drive-through locations as waypoints and exclude them, and that he expected such listings would no longer appear.
Improving on-the-ground services to encourage foreign tourists to return was another focus of the audit. When Park cited efforts to address complaints such as price gouging, Choi said more specific and practical measures were needed.
Choi described cases in which foreign tourists struggled because they did not know how to eat sundubu jjigae, a spicy soft tofu stew, at restaurants, and called for practical improvements such as foreign-language guidance on how to eat Korean dishes. "Rather than the same old talk about price gouging, we need to find specific and practical methods," she said, adding that administrators should inspect tourism sites in person.
Government support for strengthening the technological competitiveness of domestic travel platforms also came up. Rep. Kim Yun-deok of the Democratic Party of Korea said research and development support in the tourism sector falls short of industry demand.
Citing a recent analysis of the online travel agency market by the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, Kim said domestic OTA companies are struggling to raise funds and recruit research staff. He noted that technology development ranks as the industry's highest-priority need among government support programs.
The training and management of tourist guides who convey Korean history and culture to foreign visitors was also flagged for improvement. Rep. Jung Yeon-wook of the People Power Party raised concerns about possible historical distortion in Chinese-language tour commentary, saying errors in guidance could affect confidence in Korean tourism as a whole.
"This is not a minor issue but a very important one," Park said, pledging to examine it closely. He said, however, that with about 42,000 licensed tourist guides, tracking individual training records is difficult. Related associations also conduct their own training, he said, but completion records are not linked to the organization's management system, limiting database oversight.
Park said the organization would consider building a database of tourist guides' training records and managing them in an integrated system.
The audit produced repeated calls to improve the accuracy of tourism information, reduce the inconveniences foreign visitors face on the ground and build up the technological competitiveness of the domestic tourism industry. The aim, lawmakers said, is to improve quality across the board — from information provision to on-site guidance and overall tourism services — so that visits lead to return trips, not just initial arrivals.