When Travel Began Moving Again: Seoul International Travel Fair 2023

Few industries felt the pandemic as directly as tourism. Airports grew quiet, travel agencies held on and overseas tourism boards largely stopped promoting trips. By 2023 the mood began to change. Things hadn’t fully returned to the way they had been, but people were beginning to feel they could go somewhere again.

Travel fairs made the change visible. The Seoul International Travel Fair was an annual event, though it hadn’t looked quite the same for several years. In 2023, being able to walk a hall and see the industry back at work already meant something.

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The 38th Seoul International Travel Fair

The fair ran from May 4 to 7, 2023, in Hall C at COEX in Gangnam, Seoul. It was hosted by the Seoul International Travel Fair Organizing Committee and the International Tourism Forum and organized by KOTFA.

The layout was familiar. Local governments, overseas tourism boards, travel companies and airlines had booths where they could show what their destinations offered. The difference was the mood. It felt like a market beginning to do business again.

Overseas booths were especially noticeable. Many representatives had come to Korea in person and were taking questions on the floor. People were already talking about how to get actual trips moving.

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How Large the Fair Was

The fair counted 284 participating organizations, including 171 domestic and 113 overseas exhibitors. It recorded 1,130 exhibitors and delegates, with 602 from Korea and 528 from overseas, and drew around 50,000 or more visitors.

Participants came from across Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Macao, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia were represented, as were European destinations including Greece, Malta, Spain, Croatia and Finland. Tourism organizations from the Americas and Africa took part, too.

For a while, I’d encountered overseas travel information mainly in articles and videos. It made a difference to hear it from someone in the room again.

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What Changed at the Booths

One advantage of a travel fair is how much detail you can get in a brief conversation. Someone can tell you how to get around, what an activity actually involves and whether it makes sense to combine it with the rest of the trip.

Many local booths were built around things people could try. They offered tastes of local products, talked through festival programs or traced an actual route on a map. They were showing what visitors might do with the time they spent in a place.

Overseas representatives were taking questions, too. At booths for Côte d’Ivoire, cities in Japan and Southeast Asian destinations, staff could discuss a real itinerary with visitors. It felt like a return to the work of bringing people in.

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How You Find Out Where to Go

It’s easy to find more travel information than you can use online. At the fair you could ask one person a question, compare the answer with what someone at the next booth said and get a better sense of what suited you.

There was also the chance of finding out about places you hadn’t thought of going. Alongside familiar destinations such as Japan and Taiwan, there were places that would never have occurred to me to search for.

The fair was especially useful at the point where you hadn’t decided where to go yet. A conversation could give a trip its direction before you booked anything.

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Business Meetings and the Return of the Industry

The public could walk the booths, and tourism companies were arranging business-to-business meetings of their own. The same hall served people choosing a trip and people trying to make those trips possible.

Online meetings had been a larger part of the 2022 event. In 2023, it was common to see people sitting across from each other, exchanging materials and talking through an opportunity. You could see the work taking place.

It made clear how much of this industry still depends on people having a chance to meet.

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A Travel Fair After the Pandemic

The timing was as much a part of the event as the scale. It opened at a point when journeys that had been put off for years were beginning to seem possible.

People looked as though they had something to plan. They asked questions of the people behind the booths and made notes on where they might go.

I think of the fair now as a record of the travel industry beginning to move again. Being in the hall made it possible to see what that meant beyond a headline.

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