The Korea Local Administration Review

This study used the government’s big data open platform ‘Hyean’ to analyze the effect of ‘the Year of Visit’, a project aimed to revitalize local tourism by promoting regions and attracting more tourists. The analysis explored the main keywords used for ‘the Year of Visit’ on news, blogs, and Twitter for Daejeon and Suncheon City, which ran the project in 2019, and analyzed both positive and negative comments. As a result, it was found that 97% of the search results for both cities were news articles, which indicates that PR on blogs and social media had been insufficient. The main keywords included the names of the local governors, launching ceremonies, promotion committees, and other press release-related content rather than tourist destinations, festivals, or food. This shows a lack of PR measures for the cities and local tourism activities related to ‘the Year of Visit’. In order to develop the tourism industry and attract more tourists, local governments need to collect public opinion through continuous two-way communication via social media rather than focusing on organization- centered press releases, and reflect this in their policies.