Seoul, New York City sign deal to team up on tourism promotion

South Korea’s capital and New York City signed an agreement to run a joint tourism marketing campaign, city officials here said Tuesday.

According to Seoul Metropolitan Government, Deputy Mayor Kwon Young-gyu, New York City’s chief of marketing George Fertitta and Korean Air’s Woo Kee-hong signed a memorandum of understanding.

This will be the first time that New York City has formed a joint marketing relationship with an Asian city. The Big Apple has already made agreements with numerous cities including London, Madrid, and Sao Paulo.

The two cities will look to aggressively increase their brand recognition through online marketing, billboards and other media.

To kick things off, both cities have agreed to place advertisements for their counterparts on billboards in high-traffic areas as early as this month.

Seoul will eventually have its advertisements placed on one of the numerous but famous LED billboards in New York’s Times Square along with 70 additional advertisements in buses and elevators throughout the city.

Seoul is hoping to reach some 30 million New Yorkers and tourists in the city with the slogan “Infinitely Yours, Seoul.”

Here, New York City’s slogan “This is New York City” will be seen on 133 buses, taxis and elevators.

Korean Air has also agreed to lower its fares between the two cities to promote tourism. The airline has four flights to and from the cities daily on the new Airbus A380.

“Our new partnership with Seoul in collaboration with Korean Air is an innovative alliance, which will help us build tourism between our two cities, creating demand for the holiday and winter travel periods, including the Lunar New Year,” said Fertitta.

“With South Korea’s status as a visa waiver country, there’s outstanding potential to further grow the volume of travel between two of the world’s great cities.”

By Robert Lee (robert@heraldcorp.com)