Seminar on “Korea’s Top 500 Tourist Destinations Based on Traveler Sentiment Evaluation”

On November 27, 2025, the seminar “Korea’s Top 500 Tourist Destinations Based on Traveler Sentiment Evaluation” was held at the Yangjae aT Center.

The seminar unveiled a curated list of 500 representative tourist destinations in Korea, selected through popularity indicators and sentiment analysis derived from social data.

The newly developed dataset aims to shed fresh light on tourist attractions and products across the country, offering a venue to explore strategies for strengthening tourism competitiveness through traveler-driven evaluations.

The event opened with congratulatory remarks from Prof. SooCheong (Shawn) Jang, Director of Yanolja Research (Purdue University), and Bochan Bae, CEO of NOL Universe.

The first keynote presentation was delivered by Dr. Jang, titled “Developing the Evaluation Model for Korea’s Top 500 Tourist Destinations.” He discussed the need for and distinctiveness of the new destination list, the academic foundation of social-data-based sentiment evaluation, the model design and analytical methodology, and potential applications.

The second keynote presentation was delivered by Dr. Kyuwan Choi, Director of the H&T Analytics Center at Kyung Hee University, under the title “2025 Evaluation Results of Korea’s Top 500 Tourist Destinations.” He introduced the top-tier list of 100 destinations leading Korea’s tourism landscape, a second-tier list of 200 destinations with substantial growth potential, and a third-tier list of 200 destinations with strong prospects for future advancement.

Following the presentations, a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Jang brought together industry experts. The discussion covered a wide spectrum of topics, including data reliability and analytical methods used in developing the Korea Top 500 list, academic validity of the evaluation model, and practical ways to leverage the list to revitalize regional tourism.