Ex-Yeosu mayor who championed island expo says 'there was enough time'

'No point debating main venue location,' says architect of expo; city needs a push toward becoming an international tourism destination

Kwon Oh-bong, the former Yeosu mayor who conceived the 2026 Yeosu World Islands Expo, said Monday he was deeply saddened that shortcomings had been raised from within and outside the organization — and that criticism and concern had surfaced from the very start of the expo — despite sufficient time having been available since the event received government approval as an international event in 2021.

The remarks were widely read as a rebuke of his successor, former Mayor Jeong Gi-myeong (July 2022–June 2026), who critics say squandered the more than four years available after the expo cleared the Ministry of Economy and Finance's International Events Review Committee in August 2021 and was confirmed as a government-approved festival. Kwon had drawn up the basic plan for the Yeosu Islands Expo in 2019 and submitted the hosting proposal to the government in 2020.

Kwon, who passed the civil service examination (26th cohort) and worked at the Ministry of Economy and Finance before serving as Yeosu mayor from July 2018 to June 2022, told The Herald Business in an interview Monday that he planned the expo to showcase Yeosu's growth to domestic and international audiences again after the successful 2012 Yeosu World Expo, and to give residents a new sense of direction. "After the 2012 expo, Yeosu developed into a tourism city drawing more than 10 million visitors a year," he said. "We needed an opportunity to take that further and establish ourselves as an international tourism destination — that was the motivation behind the plan."

He added that the expo also provided justification for reviving the construction of four bridges between Baengya Island and Hwatae Island — links dropped from national infrastructure plans — among the 11 sea bridges connecting Goheung-gun and Yeosu's Dolsan Island. The expo, he said, was designed to make use of Yeosu's 365 islands, which he described as one of the city's greatest assets.

"Because I planned the islands expo during the seventh elected-term administration and secured central government approval for it as an international event, I feel a deep sense of occasion now that it is being held, and I sincerely hope it succeeds," Kwon said. "This expo is a symbolically important event for restoring the vitality of a region that has been losing energy, and both the central government and the local community must actively support and rally behind it."

Kwon also addressed the controversy surrounding the selection of the expo's main venue at the Jinmo district in Dolsan.

"In the original planning stage, we proposed using the World Expo site in Deokchung-dong, but during the research and consulting process it emerged that the exhibition space there was under lease and therefore unavailable as an event venue — so the Jinmo district was proposed as the next-best option," he said. "Given that fact, I think it is advisable to refrain from debating the venue location at this point, as there is nothing to be gained from it."

Ju Cheol-hyeon, the National Assembly member for the local constituency, had recently posted on Facebook that it was Kwon, as the seventh elected-term mayor, who decided on the islands expo and selected the Jinmo district as the main venue. "Claims that I chose the Jinmo district, or rumors that I own land near the main venue, are malicious lies," Ju wrote.

Attempts to change the main venue — which has struggled to draw crowds amid criticism over poor accessibility — are not without precedent.

Former Mayor Jeong raised the possibility of moving the event to the existing expo site at a press conference marking his second anniversary in office in June 2024, only to reverse course after residents of Dolsan Island staged protest visits, ultimately reaffirming that the main venue would remain at the Jinmo district in Dolsan-eup.

"This islands expo should not end as a one-off, two-month event," Kwon said. "It can be an opportunity to build new tourism resources around Yeosu's islands, and the city must use it to recover the vitality that has been sapped by the contraction of the petrochemical national industrial complex, a tourism slump and a declining population."

He also called on Yeosu residents to come together to make the expo a success. "I hope citizens will take the initiative — visit the expo themselves and encourage friends and relatives from other regions to come — and turn this into a kind of civic movement," he said. He further proposed that the city use the expo's successful staging as a springboard for the strategic and sustained development of content tailored to the character of key islands, with a view to presenting a transformed Yeosu to the world again in 10 years.

The 2026 Yeosu World Islands Expo, held at the Jinmo district main venue in Dolsan-eup, opened Sept. 5 and runs through Nov. 4 — a two-month run.

The event has set a target of 3 million visitors, including 90,000 foreign tourists, but cumulative attendance as of Sunday stood at around 400,000 — well short of expectations. Sales at shops inside the venue have also been sluggish as a result.