Online dance competition to promote Korean tourism set for Saturday

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will hold the final round of its IYKoongChallenge online dance competition Saturday in conjunction with the Korean Tourism Organization.

The event will be livestreamed through the KTO’s YouTube (www.youtube.com/ImagineYourKorea) and Tiktok (tiktok.com/@imagineyourkorea) channels.

The event aims to promote five South Korean cities selected as tourism hubs by the Culture Ministry in January: Busan; Gangneung, Gangwon Province; Jeonju, North Jeolla Province; Mokpo, South Jeolla Province; and Andong, North Gyeongsang Province.

The preliminary round of the competition was held Nov. 9 through Nov. 23 on the video-sharing platform TikTok.

Over 2 million videos were posted, showing participants doing covers of the KTO’s “Feel the Rhythm of Korea” dance, originally performed by Korean music act Leenalchi and the Ambiguous Dance Company. Of those posted, 40 videos were selected to compete in the final round.

According to the Culture Ministry, each 15-second video includes one of several animated stickers promoting the attractions of the five cities.

Saturday’s event will be held in two parts -- the first at noon and the second at 4:30 p.m. A total of 1,200 netizens will be able to vote for the winner during the event.

The top six winners will receive plane tickets and accommodation vouchers to visit Korea.

During the event, K-pop bands ITZY, Oh My Girl, WJSN and BXK will also perform, as well as Leenalchi and the Ambiguous Dance Company.

Meanwhile, the KTO on Wednesday announced that the “Feel the Rhythm of Korea” series had won an award at Tourism Innovation Awards 2020, held during the recent Tourism Innovation Summit in Seville, Spain. The summit was launched this year and is sponsored by the World Tourism Organization, the World Travel Committee and the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

Over 500 million viewers have watched the KTO’s promotional video series, which debuted in late July. The first three videos featured the major cities of Seoul, Busan and Jeonju. Videos on Andong, Gangneung and Mokpo were released later.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)