The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization announced on the 20th that they, along with Conrad Seoul, held the ‘2026 Virtuoso Symposium’ for the first time in Northeast Asia.
The event, a major international event of the luxury travel network Virtuoso, attracted around 350 decision-makers from Virtuoso member companies, which consist of luxury tourism experts spread across 58 countries with over 22,000 members.
The global luxury tourism market, a high-value sector, is projected to grow at an annual average rate of 8.4% until 2032. Through this event, the organization actively promoted Korea’s appeal to global luxury tourism leaders.
During the event, the organization conducted various activities such as a luxury tourism promotion briefing session, product development fam tours, welcome dinner, signing of strategic partnerships, and B2B networking between domestic and foreign industries. It also introduced K-beauty contents such as K-makeup and hairstyling experiences, and showcased Korea’s unique contents by visiting 17 courses, including the Museum SAN in Wonju and Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon.
The welcome dinner featured Seoul Metropolitan Dance Theater’s ‘Mimesis’ performance, noted for winning the ‘Bessies Awards,’ and a food demonstration by Seonjae, the first master of temple cuisine, highlighting Korea’s unique charm.
Furthermore, the organization became the first national tourism organization (NTO) globally to establish a strategic partnership with Virtuoso. Both organizations plan to jointly pursue the ‘Discover Luxury Korea’ project, a global campaign to enhance luxury tourism to Korea by 2029. They aim to develop travel products by sharing tourism data and plan to launch more than 50 luxury-specialized products in collaboration with Virtuoso.
Bang Seok-hyeok, President of the Korea Tourism Organization, emphasized, “Using this event as a springboard, we will shift the tourism paradigm to a high-value market and firmly establish Korea’s status in the global luxury tourism market.”
Reporter Choi Da-hyun [email protected]