Seoul and Gangwon Province team up to pitch joint travel packages at Taiwan expo

The Gangwon Tourism Foundation joined forces with the Seoul Tourism Foundation at the 2026 Taiwan International Travel Fair, held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, to promote Seoul-Gangwon linked travel packages to Taiwanese tourists and travel industry professionals.

Now in its 40th year, the fair is Taiwan's largest tourism expo, drawing 360,000 visitors in 2025.

All 18 cities and counties of Gangwon Province formed a unified team with Seoul to share information on Seoul-Gangwon travel itineraries and highlight the region's seasonal attractions, the Gangwon Tourism Foundation said Wednesday.

At the Gangwon booth, the foundation ran an SNS subscription event and organized a relay stamp activity with 13 co-exhibitors from the Seoul pavilion to draw Taiwanese visitors.

On the promotional stage, presentations and quizzes introduced Gangwon tourist destinations — including Museum SAN in Wonju, which has gained attention among travelers in their 20s and 30s on Chinese-language SNS platforms such as Xiaohongshu. The foundation also spotlighted Yangyang International Airport as a gateway connecting the Chinese-speaking world to Gangwon Province ahead of the launch of a Yangyang-Shanghai route later this year. Plush dolls of "Gangwoni" and "Teukbyeoli," the official mascot characters of Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province, proved a hit among quiz winners.

The foundation also met with Taiwanese travel industry representatives, including AsiaYo, a platform for booking accommodations and travel products, to introduce Gangwon's tourism resources and experiential offerings and discuss ways to develop linked travel products.

At an industry roundtable among co-exhibiting organizations, participants shared trends in the Taiwanese tourism market and discussed joint Seoul-Gangwon promotional strategies and future cooperation.

Yeom Dong-yeol, the newly appointed CEO of the Gangwon Tourism Foundation, said the fair provided an opportunity to propose travel itineraries connecting Seoul and Gangwon in partnership with the Seoul Tourism Foundation. "Going forward, we will build on cooperation between regional tourism organizations to develop products that link transportation and tourism content, expand joint promotions, extend the stays of Taiwanese tourists, and strengthen the foundation for wide-area tourism," Yeom said.