The National Tourism Strategy Council, South Korea's control tower for tourism policy, will be moved from the prime minister's office to the president's office starting on the 29th. As a follow-up to the April revision of the Framework Act on Tourism, the council will broaden its scope to cover industry and employment, with the Presidential Office taking charge of interagency coordination at the working level.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on the 20th that a fully revised decree on the composition and operation of the National Tourism Strategy Council was approved at a Cabinet meeting. The move finalizes the operating framework after the April revision of the Framework Act on Tourism decided to place the council under the president.
Under the revised decree, the council will include the heads of 15 ministries and the senior presidential secretary in charge of tourism policy. The head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination has been dropped from the previous lineup, while the ministers of trade and industry and of employment and labor have been added. As a result, the council will also take up the exhibition industry tied to MICE — meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions — along with workforce training and job creation in tourism.
The way ministries coordinate policy will change as well. The existing vice-ministerial coordination meeting will be reorganized into a working-level coordination meeting chaired by the senior presidential secretary for tourism policy. Vice-minister-level officials from relevant ministries will take part, sorting out agenda items for the council and resolving interagency disputes in advance. The council's secretary post will also be upgraded from the second vice minister of culture, sports and tourism to the minister to support policy implementation.
The decree also sets up channels to reflect the views of private-sector experts and local governments in policy. An advisory group of up to 20 tourism policy and industry experts may be formed, with members appointed by the culture, sports and tourism minister. A regional tourism promotion council will be chaired by the second vice minister of culture, sports and tourism and include deputy heads of metropolitan and provincial governments. Regional views gathered there will be reported to the National Tourism Strategy Council.
The council is to convene twice a year, once every six months, as a rule. The decree specifies its functions as deliberating and coordinating major tourism promotion policies and interagency disputes, and evaluating the performance of tourism promotion plans to feed the results into the next plan. That means the council will review not only how policies are drawn up but also how they are carried out.
"Through a strategy council led by the president, we have built a public-private tourism partnership tailored to Korea, one in which ministries across government, the private sector and local governments join forces," Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young said. "It will serve as a strong policy foundation for the tourism industry."