A special police unit that patrols tourist spots was launched in South Korea on Oct. 16 (a couple of years ago). The aim of the tourism police is to make areas that are popular among foreign visitors safe through their patrol activities, according to sources.
The number of foreign tourists to South Korea reached a record 11 million in 2012. More and more people are interested in the country, as its music and TV dramas are popular worldwide these days. The South Korean government wants to attract more foreign tourists to the county because they spend money by shopping and staying at hotels.
However, petty crime targeting foreign tourists has been a problem. Tourists’ complaints include overcharging by taxi drivers. Many have also complained that they were accosted by strangers on the street in shopping and entertainment districts and taken to shops where merchandise is priced higher than at normal shops.
The tourism police unit, consisting of 101 officers, will handle such problems. Their stylish uniform was made by a designer who also created a Korean pop star’s costumes. [Japan News]
Tourism is also one of the source of income for a country. South Korea have a lot of tourism sites and people all over the world have come and enjoy every sites. South Korea is an extremely urbanized country, with many major metropolitan centers. Tourist should always be cautious when travelling to urbanized country since there will be a possibility of criminal activity. The launches of South Korea’s tourism police is actually a really good way in securing tourist and also attracting even more tourist from other country. The idea of making the uniform using Korean pop star costume designer is also interesting since South Korea is famous of their Korean pop star. Making tourism police is also a great idea in our country Indonesia, since we also receive a lot of tourist from other country especially in Bali. Tourist here is also overcharge in everything such as merchandise, taxi fare, etc. Having tourism police could ensure tourist safety and also making them even more comfortable in exploring places.
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea is a advanced country that has high tourism attractions. The Hallyu wave that South Korea has became famous of, attracted many tourists to come to this country. Many spots are being full with tourists. Reading this article makes me realize that these crowd of tourists also need some securities. South Korea is being advanced by providing some tourism police to bring the secureness to tourists in South Korea. In my opinion, by providing and launching tourism police, it may rise tourism level in South Korea. Because tourists will feel secure when they come to Korea. This also show that the government of South Korea care about the tourism sector and always give their best in everything. This shows that South Korea is a very open minding country and always want to improve all sectors of the country. Indonesia, as one of Asian countries too, should make some move so that we will not be defeated from South Korea.
ReplyDeleteThis article brought into my mind the criminal behaviour that set its sight on foreign tourists whom these criminals see as easy prey due to the lack of knowledge about the surroundings of their destinations. Scamming and pickpocketing are a couple of petty crimes that frequently occur in areas with abundant visitors, and sometimes, taking this crime into the local police force is not a preferable option as victims will have to go through a complicated mess of bureaucracy, especially in Indonesia, and taking into account their status as foreigners, local police officers may have a tendency to take advantage of their lack of knowledge about the procedures.
ReplyDeleteBureaucracy in the Indonesian Police Force has always been a major problem in solving crimes and disputes, and it has been causing damages and preventable increase in costs, especially in the case where the stakeholders are foreign tourists and the tourism industry. Security is one factor that tourists have to consider carefully before visiting a country. If bureaucracy is always a constraint to security, then tourists may have to think twice about visiting that country, and this is cause of loss for the tourism industry. South Korea’s idea to establish a tourism police force and saving the tourists from the trouble of dealing with bureacracy may serve as an example and a source of inspiration for Indonesian police force to deal with petty crimes that are frequently met with unnecessary bureaucracy.
Tourism is a very important sector in the economy of many countries, so I think that it is normal that these countries want to make everything to attract as many tourists as possible. I think that the creation of a tourism police is a great idea as it will make tourists feel more secure while travelling in the country.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in a way, I am quite surprised that South Korea is the country taking that kind of measure, because it is a country reputed to be safe. But South Korea is also an innovative country so maybe it will inspire other countries with the same issues to do the same thing.
I would also be interested to know how the country think to implement this kind of police and if there will really be measurable results, because I imagine that these police officers will not be able to watch every foreigners when they are taking the taxi or buying something to see if they are being overcharged.
I think it is a great effort by the South Korean government to create the tourism police. The rise of tourism in Korea has also increase the petty criminal activities such as scam and extortion targeting the foreign tourists. These activities could reduce the willingness of potential visitors to visit South Korea because of the lack of security provided to foreign tourists. By creating the tourism police, the risk of criminal activities are reduced and foreign tourist could have an enjoyable trips in South Korea.
ReplyDeleteThe appearance of the tourism police special unit could also be attractive to foreign tourist. It is also a creative idea to make the uniform stylish and fashionable. There will be many visitors that would like to take a photo with the police, especially the female visitors. Maybe the tourism police could become as famous as the English royal guard that can be found in the Buckingham Palace.
ReplyDeleteIt seems South Korea start investing more money to tourism sector. It is a common knowledge that South Korea has gain popularity over the years from its TV shows and music industry. This popularity is become a magnet for tourist to come visit South Korea and become a lot of crime opportunity around tourism area. This is the thing that South Korea want to take care by forming this special tourism police. I think this is a good idea and can boost tourism by ensuring security in popular tourist spot. It is possible that in the future Indonesia will have this kind of special police force that will mainly handle crime related to tourism. Indonesia tourism is one of the biggest country income for many years, investing in special force that will ensure security of the sector is just a logical thinking for Indonesia. It just matter of time when will Indonesia will follow South Korea foot steps.
In my own point of view, tourism police are very clever way of handling tourism by the government. I think every country that is popular for its tourism should manage their very own tourism police. This is vital for tourist countries because this could prolong the existence of the tourist spot itself. This prolong the existence of the spots by maintaining and preserving it. We still see many violation of regulation done by people in tourist destination. If we let this happen, it will slowly damage the tourist destination or makes it less productive. If the tourist destination is wrecked, it will take harder work to revitalize it. This will also affect the number of tourists enjoying the destination. When the number continuously drops, the country’s income on tourism will also decreases. These are reasons why I think countries that have high reputation on its tourism field should have tourism police.
ReplyDeleteThis innovation is a fairly unique way to keep the tourists during a vacation in south korea. The presence of the police will give tourists a sense of security when vacationing in South Korea. As we know, there are many tragedies that have caused foreign tourists to become victims. In Indonesia there have been two cases of bombings which have resulted in many foreign tourists being killed. The first was the 2002 Bali bombing (also known as the Bali Bombing) is a series of three bombings that occurred on the evening of 12 October 2002. Two of the first explosion occurred at Paddy's Pub and Sari Club (SC) on Jalan Legian, Kuta, Bali. Second,The 2005 Bali bombings occurred on October 1, 2005, in Bali, Indonesia. Bombs exploded at two sites in Jimbaran Beach Resort and in Kuta. These two tragedies greatly affected the conditions of tourism in Bali at that time. With this innovation carried out in South Korea, it is hoped that it can be implemented in Indonesia so that this country becomes a safe destination for foreign tourists
ReplyDeleteThis is quite interesting. Never been to South Korea so I don’t know how things are doing in a country that’s famous for entertainment and skin care. Gosh, I was into both of these stuff. Countries around the globe are really interested towards things that related to South Korean. Reading that they creating a police division specific just to handle things that making tourist feel uncomfortable or unease with their trip is a really excellent. In my opinion there are two reasons why they need to launch this. Since I’ve never visit this country, the statement written in my comment are fully based on my imagination made hypothetically. For me, its either they want to make our trip is super pleasurable or its just the scams that happened in that country are horrible and making the tourist reluctant to comeback for another visit. But nonetheless, its really excellent and I hope that our country can learn something from this.
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea is one of the biggest countries in Asia, advancing in multiple sectors including their tourism surprisingly. Their tourism level is high because they have so many attractions in their country including their Korean artists that is famous with K-Pop waves that is currently trending worldwide. The K-Pop wave is surely affecting a big move in Korea’s tourism sector. Having a high level of tourists within the country definitely means that they need securities in order to for them to feel safe and comfortable as well as prepared in the event of a horrible case. If these are met, the tourists should feel secure and safe which in exchange should make them more excited in visiting Korea and even probably spreading news of this to their friends and family. As this happens, the word of mouth keeps spreading and spreading which eventually generates the country more money and have its tourism sector improve even more.
ReplyDeletePeople in Korea always have the most unique ideas. This article certainly is an example of Korean creativity. Undoubtedly, Korea has progressed massively in the entertainment and tourism industry since the past decade. Korean pop culture, as an example, has rooted into many fans’ daily routines for years. Its pop culture is definitely a huge factor that effects its tourism sector. Addition of tourism police is quite unique and adds a quirky theme to their tourism sector. In my opinion, the tourism police concept would be quite successful because they can persuade people to visit spots that are beautiful or not well-known. I think it would be quite successful in cities or countries where people do not usually know much about the tourism spots. It would be effective in some cities in Indonesia like Jakarta. Although it our capital city, there is little options as to where tourists would go to have fun. Nonetheless, this idea is very creative and I believe it would be effective if it were applied in other places.
ReplyDeleteTourism is probably one of the integral parts in a country’s economy. We can’t deny that each different country has unique beauty and attractions that allure tourist to visit and spend their money and time there. In the case of tourism in South Korea, I believe that its entertainment industry has contributed a lot to its tourism development; I observed that right now, many of my friends and relatives prefer to visit South Korea rather than Western countries, they said that they were curious about the country. With a lot of Korea’s pop culture fans from across the world, I think that as the entertainment industry grows, more tourists will certainly come to the country. With that in mind, I would say that the decision to launch tourism police is a brilliant and unique idea. I have no idea about what are the job for these type of police and what differs them from the “ordinary” police; but, with more people visiting the country, I think that rise in crime rate is inevitable, and so tourism police would be helpful.
ReplyDeleteTalking about South Korean tourism police, Indonesia also have its own tourism police. The same as the South Korean tourism police, the tourism police in Indonesia wear different uniform than the ordinary police, even their patrol cars are different in colour than the ordinary police. In Indonesia, these special tourism police are hard to find, because there are only a small number of them. I also did not know what are their special function, that differentiate them from the normal police. In my opinion, tourism is an integral part of a country’s economy, that is why, I think there should be more tourism police in Indonesia, because from what I know, in a tourism spot, there is a lot of crimes, such as thefts and scams. I hope in the future, tourism can flourish even more, and the tourists can feel even more secure by having a lot of tourism police near them in tourism area.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually my first time hearing such a thing as tourism police because you know, I’ve just never heard of them before. Since this article is very short, which attracted me to comment on it and as I am also too lazy to click on the Japan News, I do not know whether this tourism police unit is actually effective in South Korea or not. I mean yea a lot of petty crimes like overcharging prices and being called boldly by strangers have been happening all over the world in the tourism world and they are annoying, so I wonder whether the tourism police force can and actually does anything about them. Indonesia also has a lot of foreign tourists visiting from all over the world and I’ve seen my foreign friends here being overcharged lots of times so I really would want to see this tourism police unit here too to help them.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to have a task force that are specifically assigned for the tourism sector. I would say that it is a smart decision to take for a popular tourism destination such as South Korea. I would also advise this kind of policy to be implemented in other popular tourist destination. Indonesia should also assemble such task force in certain region which are also some hot spot for tourism. One example of region which needs such task force is Bali. As such a popular destination Bali has one of the most dense concentration of tourist both domestic and foreign. I suppose there are the pecalang which is technically a cultural enforcer task force; yet, they protect Balinese culture and way of life, not the tourist. Lately, there are cases of tourist especially foreign one doing ridiculous things which may endanger others and themselves which are just not severe enough for the police force to deal with; therefore, a specialize unit of enforcer would be really useful.
ReplyDeleteTourism police I think is a good idea, just by reading the title I know that this will be an interesting article to comment on and I think I’m correct. To start, I want to talk about South Korea first. Lately, South Korea has been attracting many countries in the world, if you really keep up with their progress on entertainment they actually have spread their effect or if I’m not wrong we call it hallyu wave or hallyu effect I’m not really sure with it but basically it is an effect where Korean culture starts to enter other countries and it became a booming thing there. And now it is not just entertainment, South Korea is now really popular among women because of their skincare products that rivals other products like Nivea and others. Now getting back to the main topic, because of their popularity people starts to visits Korea to really experience the culture there and I think by adding these tourism police is a good idea to give tourists some security and comfort in foreigners country.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great move done by South Korea as it is a way to help make tourist feel safe and comfortable staying in their country. Tourism helps raise the country’s economy so there is nothing wrong with making tourist feel safer while they are staying at your country. Aside from that, these tourism police also help increase the rate of tourism of their country. I never heard of any country having a tourism police aside from South Korea, I think that South Korea really paid attention towards the detail of their tourism police. As this is unique, their uniform is also eye-catching making tourist wanting to take pictures with these officers. These officers might attract tourist from other countries to come to South Korea in order to be able to take pictures with them. I realized from the picture that there are no female tourism police. Maybe, the government could improve it so that the help given towards tourists could be maximized.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of K-Pop and Hallyu wave definitely has effects on South Korea’s tourism. South Korea offers plenty of different tourist attractions, from shopping districts like Myeongdong in its capital city, Seoul, Busan and Jeju Island that offer beaches as their main attraction, to cultural and historical city like Gyeongju. Of course, tourism contributes a large number to South Korea’s income. With that being said, launching these tourism police is a great way to attract more tourists to come to South Korea. Other than it gives a different impression of how polices usually are, it also raise tourists’ safety. With the existence of tourism polices, tourists would feel that they’re being protected from petty crimes. The fact that their uniforms are created by Korean pop stars’ costume designer also add values to the tourism itself. Knowing that K-Pop stars’ costume designer designs the uniforms, K-Pop fans will be interested in seeing these tourism police even more.
ReplyDeleteLooking at what South Korea did to protect their tourism place, I think creating a tourism police somehow can be very useful, especially for a country like South Korea who depends quite big in the tourism industry. In order to keep the tourist area fully sustainable and clean from any form of vandalism and pollution, I think creating a tourism police can be strategic for the long run in the foreign investment as long as there is enough human force. Not all the time a police can be very mobile especially going to the tourism area. Meanwhile, all form of theft like pickpocketing, robbery, and other is common to happen in this tourism area due to its area condition which can be very crowded causing the thief to easily escape. Without enough surveillance, this tourism area can be very dangerous, and in the long run, it can reduce the fame that has been going on, and eventually it can reduce the amount of the tourist that are coming.
ReplyDeleteI think this Tourism Police can be very important in Indonesia, since Indonesia can be listed as one of the countries who depends almost only on tourism, I think one way to ensure for the tourists to keep on coming to Indonesia, is by putting a certain division who will be supervised directly by the department of tourism. People in Indonesia currently are being so insecure at a tourism place due to the fact that Indonesia is still commonly facing any form of theft. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to have Tourism police, and I think my suggestion does not only for Indonesia, but also goes for any country who are in the phase of developing through Tourism income, such as Brazil, Italy, Spain, and other. Maybe the consideration of having a tourism police is that it may have a huge cost, but it sure can be very effective for the long run of the Tourism area.
DeleteThe initiative from South Korea’s government to deal with tourism problems mentioned above needs to be applauded. Not many countries pay this much attention to the problems in their tourism section. They listened to the comments and complaints that the tourists and visitors reported and actually made efforts to prevent those things to happen again in the future. Other countries need to take notes on how South Korea deals with problems with tourism. Because in many countries, a big part of their income is from international tourists that came to the country and if these problems such as overcharging by taxis and giving tourists higher price still occur, the tourists may have a bad impression of the country and they may tell their friends and relatives not to come to the country they visited. If these tourism police are able to lower the number of the crimes and frauds happened to tourists, other countries should start making their own unit of tourism police.
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