Sixteen city and provincial governments have agreed to share strategies to attract 11 million foreign visitors during this year and improve tourism preparedness as well as beef up cooperation with the central government.

Some 40 people, including Shin Yong-un, director general of the Tourism Industry Bureau at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), and the director generals in charge of tourism at 16 city and provincial governments, participated in a tourism workshop on Jeju Island on Feb. 10. 

The participants reviewed the achie-vements the Korean tourism industry made during last year and pending issues and discussed the tasks their local governments plan to implement during this year. 

The Korean tourism industry aims to attract 11 million inbound arrivals during this year by capitalizing on mega convention events such as the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit and Expo 2012 Yeosu. 

The 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, to be held in Seoul in March, will be the largest summit in the security field that discusses international cooperative measures to protect nuclear materials and facilities from terrorist groups, with participation from more than 50 heads of state and international organizations. 

Nine international organizations and 101 countries are expected to participate in Expo 2012 Yeosu, to be held from May 12 to Aug. 12 under the theme "The Living Ocean and Coast." 

The Jeollabuk-do provincial gove-rnment said it aims at attracting 68 million tourists during 2012, up 7 percent over 2011, making the most of the "Visit Jeonbuk 2012 Korea Year."

The central government has designated this year as "2012 Korea Convention Year" as part of its efforts to nurture the MICE industry (meetings, incentive tours, conv-entions, exhibitions/events) as one of the nation's future growth engines. 

The participants shared the view that thanks to such upcoming mega events, inbound arrivals are forecast to continue to surge, and they exchanged options on how to divert inbound arrivals, now centering around the Seoul metropolitan area and Jeju Island, to other parts of the nation.

The MCST urged local governm-ents to aggressively provide support for improving the nation's tourism prepare-dness. Each city and provincial governm-ent introduced its own tourism practices and offered tasks and recommendations to the central government to ramp up the nation's tourism industry. 

The ministry plans to regularize meetings with the director generals in charge of tourism from city and provincial governments and promote collaboration between the central and local governments.