South Korea selects nine high-potential tourist sites for 2026, including Sille Village

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization announced that nine sites nationwide, including Chuncheon’s Sille Village, have been selected as small-scale yet high-potential tourist destinations for 2026. The program aims to identify lesser-known places with distinctive appeal and help local governments develop them into flagship attractions.

Launched in 2019, the initiative targets destinations with unique character and growth potential, pairing them with local authorities to build them into representative tourism draws. The new selections reflect a strategy to expand Korea’s tourism base beyond well-known sites.

Sille Village, in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, is tied to novelist Kim Yoo-jeong and serves as a focal point of the area’s literary heritage. The village is associated with works such as The Camellia Flowers and Spring, Spring, and hosts the Kim Yoo-jeong Literature Village. The locale also features the Book and Printing Museum and the Sille Story Path, creating a dense, walkable literary-and-cultural cluster.

Officials note that three selected sites, including Sille Village, will receive big-data-based consulting to support systematic marketing planning. The analysis will consider each site’s inherent growth potential and the potential for megaregional tourism links and attracting foreign visitors, aligning with Korea’s push to expand cross-regional travel.

Kim Seok, head of the National Tourism Office at the Korea Tourism Organization, said domestic attractions with strong but little-known appeal offer significant upside. He emphasized that the selected sites will be developed as Korea’s representative tourism content through megaregional collaboration, with domestic offices taking the lead.

For U.S. readers, the program matters as it signals Korea’s effort to diversify and strengthen its appeal to international travelers through culture, literature, and regionally connected itineraries. The use of big-data marketing and cross-regional collaboration could help attract longer visits and targeted marketing to American travelers, tour operators, and students of Korean literature.

Chuncheon and the broader Gangwon region are already popular with visitors from abroad seeking natural beauty and Korean culture. The addition of a literature-driven, walkable cluster like Sille Village complements existing attractions and may shape new, U.S.-oriented travel packages that combine cultural experiences with regional exploration.

Overall, the initiative illustrates Korea’s broader strategy to turn lesser-known locales into flagship destinations by leveraging data-driven marketing, literary heritage, and wide-area tourism networks, potentially boosting foreign visitation and benefiting local economies.