Busan turns pork gukbap into tourism draw with inaugural festival

Busan is turning pork gukbap — the city's beloved "soul food" — into a gastronomic tourism attraction with a new participatory festival. The Busan city government and the Busan Tourism Organization announced Tuesday that they will hold the 2026 Busan Pork Gukbap Festival for the first time this year, aiming to expand the dish's local identity and food culture into a tourism draw.

Pork gukbap is said to have spread through Busan when refugees flooded the city during the Korean War, and residents have cherished it ever since. Each restaurant has developed its own distinct flavor, cementing the dish as a defining local food. The city plans to cultivate that appeal into a signature gastronomic tourism offering unique to Busan.

The festival is a participatory event in which 20 representative gukbap restaurants will be selected through online and offline recommendations, with votes then narrowing the field to a top 10 and a top 3. It runs from August through October in four stages: an online and offline gukbap recommendation survey, a gukbap summit, a gukbap week and a gukbap showcase.

The first stage runs through Saturday, combining online participation via posts related to the Busan Pork Gukbap Festival on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms with offline surveys conducted at traditional markets and other venues. Based on the nominations and submitted stories, organizers will select a group of "gukbap lovers" and 20 representative gukbap restaurants.

On Sept. 19, representatives of the 20 selected restaurants, gukbap enthusiasts and culinary experts will convene for the gukbap summit. Participants will freely discuss the characteristics of each restaurant's pork gukbap, the reasons behind their recommendations and the diverse appeal of Busan's pork gukbap scene. The summit will be filmed and released as video content.

During gukbap week, which runs for two weeks from Sept. 28 through Oct. 14, a public vote will determine the top 10 and top 3 from among the 20 summit-selected restaurants. Votes can be cast in person at each store or through Kakao Map.

The gukbap showcase will be held offline at Busan BIFC2 for three days from Oct. 16 through Oct. 18, featuring gukbap vendor booths, cooking shows and a range of programs for visitors to taste and enjoy Busan's pork gukbap. On Oct. 17, the Gukbap Awards ceremony will announce the three best pork gukbap restaurants of the year based on the gukbap week voting results.