Park Bo-gum selects honorary ambassador for tourism in Korea in 2025 What do you think? With the release of the package, G-Dragon, Nol, Hana, Modoo, Yellow, and Kyowon, there is no star marketing this year
Actor Park Bo-gum, who represents Korean tourism?
Actor Park Bo-gum is expected to be selected as an honorary ambassador for Korean tourism. On the 14th, the Korea Tourism Organization posted a post on YouTube, its own social network (SNS), titled “2025 Guessing the Ambassador for Korea Tourism.”
The post features a silhouette image of a new honorary ambassador wearing our traditional clothes, a coat and a gat. Twenty of the Internet users who answered the honorary ambassador in comments after seeing the silhouette will be selected and invited to the “2025 Honorary Ambassador Appointment Ceremony for Korean Tourism” scheduled for the 29th. On the 24th, a special album will also be released in collaboration with the new ambassador and K-pop producer Tim KZ Lab (LAB).
The post also contains a clue that he is an actor in the recently popular Netflix drama “Fully Believed.”
The industry seems to be certain that the 2025 Korean tourism ambassador is the actor “Park Bo-gum.” Although the corporation has not officially announced it yet, Internet users are also estimating that actor Park Bo-gum is the new face of the corporation by looking at the silhouette in the post.
The Korea Tourism Organization has been selecting honorary ambassadors every year to promote Korea’s charm to the world. People who have a great influence at home and abroad, such as actors and singers, who have a positive influence enough to lead to foreign tourists visiting Korea, will be selected.
The corporation appointed K-pop group “Newzins” in 2024, actor “Lee Jung-jae” in 2023, and “BTS” in 2022 as honorary ambassadors. All of them are parties to the entertainment industry that caused the Korean Wave at home and abroad that year.
Recently, the Netflix drama “Fully Believed,” starring Park Bo-gum as Yang Kwan-sik, topped the global TV show category in 12 countries. Park Bo-gum is starring as Yoon Dong-joo, a strong special team, in JTBC’s Saturday-Sunday drama “Good Boy,” which is currently airing. According to the OTT viewing ranking aggregation site FlixPatrol, ‘Good Boy’ has been performing well one after another, ranking fourth on Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Global Top TV Show’ daily chart.
Park Bo-gum, who debuted with the film “Blind” in 2011 and is in his 14th year of debut this year, has been growing his presence in the entertainment industry without much controversy for more than a decade. The industry analyzes this point of Park Bo-gum as one of the backgrounds for the selection of honorary ambassadors.
Why the travel industry is spending billions of dollars on celebrities
Top celebrities reportedly cost several billion won in annual advertising contracts alone. Nevertheless, the travel industry has continued marketing using celebrities. On top of that, prices soar again depending on advertising transmission channels such as terrestrial broadcasting and general broadcasting. Why do we hire celebrities at the expense of enormous marketing costs.
Image marketing is important because the travel industry has a strong “emotional” consumption tendency. Advertisements using celebrities are an effective means of opening wallets by infusing consumers with feelings of “excitement” and “expectation,” which are the core of travel. On top of that, since travel is not a real product, you can guarantee the quality of your products by using a model with high brand reliability.
There is also the impact of COVID-19. As travel demand, which has been stagnant since the pandemic, has recovered, competition for market dominance has intensified in the travel industry. The industry has adopted celebrity marketing one by one as a strategy to differentiate services between travel agencies and platforms. For this reason, celebrity marketing seems to have been popular in the travel industry.
From Shin Dong-yeop to G-Dragon…Breaking away from the image of “How about here?”
One of the recent cases that has received great attention in the industry is the collaboration between singer G-DRAGON and here. Travel and leisure platform “How about here” is one of the companies that has been aggressively marketing celebrities. In June last year, it released an advertising video that selected soccer player Son Heung-min as a model for the summer campaign.
Is it because of marketing with celebrities such as Son Heung-min. Last year’s operating profit was 56.5 billion won, up 22% year-on-year. The number of active users in the app also exceeded 12 million. With this momentum, he put G-Dragon as the face of this year.
In fact, the 30-second video titled “ft. G-DRAGON,” which was uploaded on the 1st, exceeded 8.17 million views within two weeks of its launch. The commercial video features several G-dragons, singing advertisement songs, and promoting their domestic and international and packaged travel products.
G-Dragon is the best singer in Korea. Using G-Dragon as an advertising model, the advertising expenses spent by Yeoreum will be expensive. Yeoreum, an online travel platform (OTA), entered the packaged travel market as a latecomer in July. Not only top domestic travel agencies such as Kyowon Tour, Yellow Balloon, Modoo Tour, Hana Tour, and Hanjin Tour, which specialize in package tours, but also OTA, Nol Interpark Tour, which has already entered the package tour market, must be overcome.
After all, it is safe to say that the package tour market is a red ocean. It is no exaggeration to say that G-Dragon was chosen as the super-strongest way to let people know at home and abroad that Yeohae-ui has launched a “package trip.”
This is quite different from the concept when Shin Dong-yup was used as a model in 2015. Beyond the accommodation reservation platform, it is a challenge to diversify product groups such as package tours, and to break away from the brand image.
“We want to announce a new travel trend with G-Dragon, which has become a global icon beyond K-pop,” an official said.
Hana Tour, which made a great performance in partnership with Kim Tae-ri
From 2022 to May this year, Hana Tour used actor Kim Tae-ri as an advertising model and released various campaign videos. At the end of March 2022, Hana Tour reportedly spent 30 billion won in short-term borrowings on public disclosure, and some of the borrowings were used to hire Kim Tae-ri.
Hana Tour explained the background of the model selection at the time, saying, “The bright and confident image of actor Kim Tae-ri, who has a high favorability for all ages, is in contact with Hana Tour, which conveys the excitement of travel.”
Hana Tour also released a total of three advertisements in 2024 under the name of Kim Tae-ri and “Hana and Taeri.” It tells the story of Kim Tae-ri directly experiencing “One Package Tour Like Free Travel,” “One Pack 2.0,” “One Kit for Free Travel,” and “Mingling Tour for 2030.”
The advertisement received a good advertisement award in the digital category of the “2025 Consumer’s Good Advertising Award” and was also well received by consumers and the industry.
The long-lasting model had a reason. Hana Tour has been recovering since 2022, when it used Kim Tae-ri as a model, and last year, its operating profit alone reached 50.8 billion won, the highest sales since its foundation. Hana Tour’s strong sales cannot be attributed to Kim Tae-ri, but it is certain that it has not had a negative impact.
An official from Hana Tour said, “My contract with Kim Tae-ri is over this year, and there is no specific plan so far on whether to proceed with celebrity advertisements in the future.”
After Cho Seung-woo, Son Seok-gu chose Teacher Tour
Kyowon Tour, which entered the package tour market in 2022, also worked hard on celebrity marketing. Kyowon Tour launched a new brand ‘Travel Easy’ and selected Cho Seung-woo as an advertising model at the time to announce the birth of a new brand.
From 2023, Son Seok-gu, an actor who emerged like a comet, appeared in the drama “My Liberation Diary” and the movie “Criminal City 2” at the time, as a model. The travel magazine was introduced in a sensuous composition under the concept of “Let’s be loved by travel.”
Starting with the TV commercial “Let’s Be Loved by Travel” at the time of the Kyowon Tour, it conducted YouTube and home shopping marketing using Son Seok-gu for a year. Online exhibitions and offline agencies also actively used Son Seok-gu’s image.
The reason Kyowon Tour used Cho Seung-woo and Son Seok-gu as brand models was to target female consumers in their 20s and 40s, the main fan base of these actors.
However, it is rumored that the celebrity marketing effect of the Kyowon Tour was not very significant. In response, Kyowon Tour announced that it will not conduct separate model marketing in the future as the overseas travel market has been activated.
An official of the Kyowon Tour said, “As we are focusing on internal management, we are not reviewing TV broadcast advertisements that involve large costs.”
NOL, there’s no one here this year?
NOL (formerly Yanolja) is not doing celebrity marketing this year. It’s a different move from the same OTA here.
Before changing the platform name, Choi Min-sik and Choi Woo-sik were selected as advertising models during Yanolja’s time last year. At that time, the two actors’ names were combined to promote the platform using the rhyme “Let’s play the latest.”
Yanolja wanted to build a brand image that encompasses all generations by utilizing actor Choi Woo-sik, who is highly recognized in the 20s and 30s, and actor Choi Min-sik, who is highly recognized in the 40s and 50s.
Nol, who changed the platform name this year, said he would not use the advertising model for the time being. This is because it is in the early days of its launch by changing the platform’s name, so it will highlight the image of the brand itself without overlapping the image of any celebrities.
“This year is the first year that Nol Universe has launched, and we have no plans to brand it as a celebrity,” a Nol Universe official said. “Rather than imprinting the brand image through collaboration with celebrities, we are focusing on branding that allows consumers to feel and respond to the natural travel, leisure, cultural competitiveness and happiness of Nol Universe.”
Modu Tour is also not using a brand model with the same strategy as Nol. Since using Kim Soo-hyun as an advertising model for TV and other products in 2017, Modoo Tour has not been marketing celebrities using terrestrial broadcasting.
“Now, we are focusing on performance marketing, such as customized content for each customer and promotion centered on customer contact points, considering efficiency rather than star marketing,” a Modu Tour official said.
Yellow Balloon, who insisted on ‘Lee Seo-jin’ for 10 years, said goodbye this year…Why?
Some travel agencies have insisted on a model for as long as 10 years. It’s “Yellow Balloon.” Yellow Balloon has been carrying out various brand campaigns by using actor Lee Seo-jin as an advertising model from 2014 to last year. This is a rare case not only in the travel industry but also in other industries.
Yellow Balloon explained why Lee Seo-jin served as a tour guide with senior actors in the entertainment program “Grandpas Over Flowers,” which aired at the time, matched the brand image.
Yellow Balloon is with Lee Seojin, “Changing the Plate of Travel”, “I’ll take care of you.” It delivered the value of reasonable travel and brand philosophy through campaigns by period such as “From the beginning to the end,” “It’s possible,” “You and I yellow,” and “Travel lightly.”
Unfortunately, the 10-year relationship between the yellow balloon and Lee Seo-jin ended last year. We don’t have celebrity marketing this year.
An official from Yellow Balloon said, “We have focused on advertising activities using mass media to increase brand awareness,” and added, “From this year, we will implement a marketing strategy that expands contact with customers and provides practical brand experiences.”
Kim Soo-hyun, a penalty of tens of billions of won, vs. Lim Young-woong, who jumped 5 times
There are clear names and 暗 in celebrity marketing. Recently, Kim Soo-hyun is on the verge of paying tens of billions of won in advertising penalties due to controversy with the late Kim Sae-ron. It’s the obvious darkness of celebrity marketing.
On the contrary, some companies have benefited from the advertising effect of celebrities. Samdasoo, a bottled water brand, used Lim Young-woong as a model for a year from March 2024. In the two weeks after the model was selected, the number of new subscribers to the official application “Jeju Samdasoo Home Delivery” increased by about five times, and the number of orders increased by 108.5% during the same period.
If there is a controversy that hurts the privacy or existing image of a celebrity who used it as an advertising model, the brand image can also be damaged. The advantage of the impact of celebrities is also a disadvantage.
Another problem is the high advertising fees required to hire famous celebrities. Small and medium-sized brands or startups prefer advertisements using famous celebrities to promote their brands.
A representative example is an advertisement modeled on G-Dragon by artificial intelligence (AI) platform startup “Lutton Technologies.” Luton is known to have spent more than 1 billion won on advertising fees for G-Dragon alone, but he thought it was important to inform the market of the product even though it was a start-up, so he spent a lot of money on celebrities as a model.
The problem is that companies or small companies that have just started have invested a huge amount of money to market celebrities, but the return on investment is not high. There are many companies that disappear after suffering from financial difficulties due to excessive advertising costs.
The case of Balan, a luxury platform company that once attracted attention for its advertisement of actress Kim Hye-soo, should be taken as a lesson. Balan, which faced a management crisis due to excessive marketing costs, is now in the process of corporate rehabilitation.
There is also a problem that focuses only on celebrities in advertisements rather than products or brands themselves. This is the adverse effect of star marketing. Alternatively, there are cases in which the brand depends only on the impact of the celebrity itself, and the planning and differentiation of the advertising content itself is poor, so it does not have much advertising effect.
This year is a time when celebrity marketing slows down in the travel industry. In particular, most domestic travel agencies, except for Hana Tour, performed poorly last year due to the aftermath of Timef and martial law. There seems to be no room to invest a lot of money and conduct star marketing in a situation where the overall business is not good.
An industry official said, “If not only the modeling fees and filming costs of top celebrities, but also media costs are combined, they will be executed from at least 6 billion to 7 billion, and as much as 10 billion.”
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