Korea Unveils Data-Driven Crowd Management Manual for Tourist Sites
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has released a new manual to systematically manage crowding at tourist sites, covering the full cycle from early prediction to on-site response and post-event evaluation.
The guide, titled the Sustainable Tourist Destination Congestion Management Manual, is designed to help local governments and related bodies oversee congestion in a structured way. It outlines a three-stage management framework: planning and design, operations and response, and evaluation and feedback.
In the planning and design phase, the manual calls for demand surveys and baseline studies at target sites, classification of site types, setting key performance indicators, preemptive congestion forecasting, and the establishment of real-time monitoring systems.
During the operations and response phase, the manual details on-site procedures, including staff training, the operation of a situation room, activation of warning systems, and safety management for tourists, along with situation-specific response plans.
The evaluation and feedback phase emphasizes post-event analysis, performance assessment, and the development of improvement plans to refine future management.
A notable feature is the integrated congestion analysis system, which links pre-prediction, real-time analysis, and video analytics to support field decision-making. The manual also provides practical materials such as KPI examples, response scenarios, agency roles, and field checklists.
The manual is available on the Korea Tourism Data Lab. Lee Ji-eun, head of KTO’s Tourism Consulting Team, described it as a practical, field-oriented reference that consolidates the entire process and aims to foster a sustainable tourism environment where visitors and local residents can coexist.
For U.S. readers, the development signals a move toward data-driven, technology-enabled crowd management by Korea’s national tourism body. If such approaches prove effective, they could offer models for managing overcrowding at popular U.S. destinations, airports, or large events, and could inform collaboration in smart tourism, safety, and resilience strategies across tourism markets and supply chains.