Namhae County’s Tourism Policy Wins Grand Prize... Honored with Inaugural Gyeongnam Tourism Award

Highly Rated for Sustainable Tourism Model with Expanded German Village Content

Key Indicators Rise: Visitor Spending, Length of Stay, and Overnight Visitor Ratio

Namhae-gun in Gyeongsangnam-do received the Grand Prize at the inaugural Gyeongnam Tourism Awards, which was newly launched by Gyeongsangnam-do this year.

The county announced on the 13th that it was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1st Gyeongnam Tourism Awards during the ceremony for the '2026 1st Gyeongsangnam-do Tourism Day' held at Changwon Convention Center.

'Gyeongsangnam-do Tourism Day' was established for the first time this year to celebrate the confirmation of the Namhaean Island-Connecting Maritime National Road and to highlight the importance of the tourism industry. The newly established Gyeongnam Tourism Awards is a system that evaluates and recognizes the tourism policies and achievements in revitalizing the tourism industry of cities and counties in the province.

After winning the Grand Prize at the 1st Gyeongnam Tourism Awards during the '2026 1st Gyeongsangnam-do Tourism Day' ceremony held at the Changwon Convention Center, Ryu Kyungwan, the head of Namhae County, along with relevant officials and tourism representatives, are taking a commemorative photo.

The evaluation was conducted with a ratio of 60% quantitative assessment and 40% qualitative assessment. The quantitative assessment reflected factors such as the number of visitors attracted, tourism spending, efforts to improve the tourism environment, and achievements in tourism promotion and public contests. The qualitative assessment focused on the development of regionally specialized tourism content and the originality of policies.

Namhae-gun has continuously worked to expand its ecotourism infrastructure, improve the tourism environment, and develop regionally specialized tourism content. In particular, its efforts to enhance tourism competitiveness and sustainability through the remodeling of the German Village and the expansion of tourism content were highly regarded.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization's Data Lab, tourism spending in Namhae-gun in 2025 increased by 14.9% compared to the previous year. Other key tourism indicators, such as visitor inflow, the ratio of overnight visitors, average length of stay, destination search volume, and social networking service (SNS) search volume, also showed an overall increase.

Ryu Kyungwan, the governor of Namhae-gun, stated, "This award is the result of the efforts of our residents and local tourism stakeholders," adding, "We will continue to pursue competitive tourism policies that utilize local tourism resources."

Meanwhile, in celebration of Gyeongnam Tourism Week (July 5-18), Namhae-gun is offering free admission to the German Village Mining Exhibition Hall and Namhae Healing Forest Town, along with events that provide accommodation coupons through tourism-linked programs.

Tourism is evaluated not as a one-off event but by the competitiveness of continuous content and policies. This award not only recognizes the achievements of Namhae-gun's tourism policies but also presents a new challenge to prove their sustainability.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.