*This content was translated by AI.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Choi Hwi-young) finally selected 27 as "2026-2027 Culture and Tourism Festivals" and announced them on the 23rd. Twenty of these were re-designated among the existing "2024-2025 Culture and Tourism Festivals," and seven were newly selected, including the Busan International Rock Festival, Nonsan Strawberry Festival, and Sejong Festival, which have recently been very popular with young generations and family tourists.
The 2026-2027 Culture and Tourism Festival was selected by comprehensively considering the evaluation results of experts, consumers, and local residents over the past two years, whether there are negative problems such as rip-off fees, and acceptance posture.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization will provide comprehensive support for international public relations, tourism product development, content competitiveness, and artificial intelligence (AI) acceptance posture along with state funds (40 million won per supported festival) for two years from 2026 to 2027.
In particular, from this year, it will be completely reorganized from the method of individually supporting existing cultural tourism festivals and preliminary festivals to the method of linking ▶ same theme ▶ geographic proximity ▶ regional representative tourist destinations. It plans to expand the recognition and competitiveness of the entire "cultural tourism festival" by utilizing the status and recognition of the "global festival" representing Korea.
In addition, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has significantly expanded the budget for supporting "cultural tourism festivals," including "global festivals," which have been selected and supported since 2024, from 6.5 billion won in 2025 to 10.4 billion won in 2026. This year, three new "global festivals" will be selected in addition to the existing "global festivals" such as the Incheon Pentaport Music Festival, the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Festival, and the Suwon Hwaseong Cultural Festival, and four "preliminary global festivals" will be selected to expand globally by improving acceptance posture, discovering differentiated core contents, and commercializing international tourism. Through this, the global interest in 'K-culture' will be linked to a regional representative 'global festival' to spread the steps of domestic and foreign tourists from the metropolitan area to the region.
The "Global Festival" and "Preliminary Global Festival" will be selected by holding a contest for 27 "2026-2027 Culture and Tourism Festivals" and 20 honorary festivals until February this year, and the detailed schedule of the contest will be disclosed later.
Kang Dong-jin, a tourism policy officer at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said, "The Culture and Tourism Festival is a place where you can comprehensively experience 'K-Culture' such as history and culture representing the region. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will do its best to expand support for 'Culture and Tourism Festival' including 'Global Festival' so that domestic and foreign tourists can head to the region once more to visit the festival."
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*This content was translated by AI.
