Seoul, Korea- Government has announced their plans to build a K-pop Music Mecca in Changdong to promote tourism.
According to CNN, from a rundown disctric, Changdong is now in transition into a mecca to K-pop, which has made Korea popular in the globe. Korea has earned $5 billion last year, mostly from music sales, Korean TV shows and films, games and other publishing, based on reports.
With few hundred thousand people, Changdong is relatively a small residential commuter area and has only little cultural facilities.The K-pop music mecca is expected to revive Changdong by increasing the rate of tourism. In line with this, the project should also offer job opportunities to residents, just like what K-pop artist Park Jae Sang also known as PSY has done for Gangnam in Seoul when his song "Gangnam Style" made the world sing and do the dance craze.
By the year 2021, the Changdong government expects to showcase K-pop talents in their new multi-cultural entertainment arena which can accommodate 20,000 audiences. The Seoul Metropolitan Government expects that this, in line with having concert halls, music schools, and recording studios will attract musicians to live in Changdong which will help in it's development.
"Since the 1980s, the population in Changdong has increased rapidly. There was almost no cultural center so (it was) decided to have the arena set up first ... and turn it into a youth and art complex," Kim Dong Cheol, leader of the Seoul Metropolitan Government arena team.
According to an associate professor in urban planning at the Korea University Graduate School of International Studies, this kind of development has become common in Seoul and many other parts of the city has turned themselves into a cultural hub to help attract tourists.
"Gangnam itself was created in a similar kind of way in the 70s. They decided they were going to develop it intensively in order to get middle class and upwards people to move in that direction and forcibly moved all sorts of cultural institutions, in particular schools and universities, to support this strategy," as stated by Potter.
This turnaround has insipired PSY to write his song which hit the world by storm.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
