Psy Puts South Korea on the Tourists' Map

Trendy, posh and affluent, Gangnam is a popular district in South Korea for its Beverly Hills' lifestyle. This Seoul's postcode is not only the capital's hub for luxury shopping, fancy brunches and cocktails, but is also home to some of South Korea's music agencies, a dashing touch that frosts the area with a "cool", chic and attractive mist.

PSY's K-pop song "Gangnam Style" was inspired in this area while its video –which garnered over a billion views on YouTube and it has become the website's most watched video of all time- was shot in the Gangnam District. While the song tells about singer's lifestyle –who is said to have Gangnam's style-, the music video shows PSY dancing on top of the Asem building with the Trade Tower in the background. Both buildings are part of World Trade Centre Seoul (WTO Seoul), also known as COEX.

The catchy song, the contagious "crossing reins" dance routine, and the explosively spellbinding video that went viral have raised international awareness of the district. Indeed, last year witnessed the origin of a phenomenon known as "Holidays Gangnam Style", as South Korea recorded best year ever for tourism in 2012. Precisely, according to the country's Culture Minister, the Asian country saw some 11.1 million visitors last year, a figure that was up 13.4% on 2011.

Tourists from neighbouring countries like Japan and China were the prevalent visitors. 3.51 million Japanese tourists and over 2.83 million Chinese travellers visited South Korea last year -a rise of 24.7% on the latter figure in comparison with the previous year. According to official projections, more visitors will fly into Seoul this year.

The Korean Tourism Organisation has set up a "Gangnam tour" –a K-Pop-themed tourist attraction- for music lovers wanting to visit the glitzy suburb. The tour will include the opportunity to learn to dance like South Korean star with K-Pop dance academies offering courses in the popular music genre.

There is also a plan to have a monument to Korean pop music on the streets and new square for concerts and performances off the road and in between the pavement will be printed with the handprints of South Korea's biggest pop stars.

South Korea's Aerotropolis

An aerotropolis is an urban plan in which the layout, infrastructure and economy is centred around an airport, existing as an airport city. It can also be defined as "a city planned around its airport, or more broadly, as a city less connected to tis land-bound neighbours than to its peers thousands of miles away", according to Greg Lindsay, co-author of " Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next ".

In his book, co-written with John Kasarda, Lindsay argues that aerotropolis are the future of the global city which is an amalgam of made-to-order office parks, convention hotels, cargo complexes and even factories, in a global network whose fast-moving packets are people and goods instead of data. He believes that the old real-estate rule of "location, location, location" is being swapped for the new rule of "accessibility, accessibility, accessibility."

The authors argue that aerotropolis will change the way we live. "The aerotropolis is tailor-made for today's world, in which no nation reliably dominates and every nation must fight for its place in the global economy", Lindsay stated. "It is at once a new model of urbanism and the newest weapon in the widening competition for wealth and security."

"Cities have always formed around transportation –ports and harbours and then train stations," states Lindsay. "Air travel is the only way to connect globally, and now, more frequently, cities will grow around airports."

Songdo International Business District is built around the Incheon International Airport. This condition has made Songdo a compelling aerotropolis which is three and a half hours flying time to one third of the world's population. The Incheon International Airport's condition of massive gateway makes Songdo IBD a suitable business hub for all of Northeast Asia.

The new Incheon International Airport serves as a main centre for Korean Air, Asiana Airlines and Polar Air Cargo. Also, Incheon International Airport is at the moment Asia's eighth busiest airport in terms of passengers, the world's fifth busiest airport as to cargo and freight, and the world's eleventh busiest airport in terms of international passengers in 2006. In 2009, Skytrax ranked the airport the best in the world, giving it a full 5-star ranking.

In 2001, the South Korean government approached a New York-based about developing a city that, by being bear the newly opened airport in Incheon would attract multinational corporations and possibly turn the region into the world's gateway to northeast Asia. "The idea was that it would be an international business district and that foreigners would find this a convenient place to set up business," said former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Thomas Hubbard, when the project began. Songdo is still under construction as its importance as a business and residential hub grows.

Successful social marketing boosts global fascination for K-pop acts. The local social media market in Korea is relatively closed off from the outside world, which makes it problematic for non-Korean Internet or mobile users to search for anything related to K-pop in the English language.

It is almost impossible to search for English content on K-pop or hallyu by using local social media services, such as Cyworld, the Korean version of Facebook, or Me2day, the Korean version of Twitter.

However, in recent times Korean artists started to move away from local SNS to more open and global SNS such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. According to an expert, this tendency is causing the Korean wave to shift gear "from fad to phenomena."

"The Internet became synonymous with going international. ‘Popularity' of a music artist is no longer measured purely by sales figures or airplay rotations but also views, tweets, and like," said Bernie Cho, president of DFSB Kollective, a creative content group that also distributes K-pop digitally on iTunes.

"K-pop's success on social media is now translating online busyness into offline business opportunities for Korean idol acts on tours and indie acts at festivals."

If a K-pop music video attracts more than 1 million views, for instance, it will produce "a meaningful revenue" big enough to dole out profits to members of a K-pop group, Cho said.

This phenomenon of turning online fever into offline tours is exemplified in 16-year-old guitarist Jung Sung-ha, whose YouTube videos have garnered over a million views and counting.

S.M. Entertainment was the first major entertainment agency to build a strategic partnership with YouTube and join the most-visited video site channel under the name S.M. Town in August 2006.

YG Entertainment followed suit in January 2008, and JYP Entertainment, in December 2008.

These three major entertainment agencies went on to open other social media channels like Facebook pages, which allowed them to interact with fans across international boundaries on a real-time basis.

Before the agencies disclose their K-pop artists' music video or music files online, they release teaser videos and photos on social media platforms in order to build up fans' excitement or maximise upcoming K-pop music.

"Several years ago when we first created our official channel on YouTube, we thought K-pop music videos would easily resonate with global fans if they had quality content. And in hindsight, our strategy worked perfectly," said Kim Eun-a, spokesperson for S.M. She said that was when the K-pop started to make a meaningful impact on the global market.

David Cho, marketing team head of the music business division at CJ E&M, said the key to successful K-pop social marketing is "crowdsourcing".

"Crowdsourcing will bring about interactive communication between producers and consumers where producers can reflect the interests and ideas of the masses in their creative products," he said.

According to a report by Park-Han-woo, associate professor in Yeungnam University's media and communication department, it was not major broadcasters or professional agencies but amateur fans who actually helped exemplify the viral power of K-pop.

Park's report –which tracked the Twitter network of K-pop from November 1st to February 15th- showed that regions including Asia, America and Europe had their major "network hubs" for K-pop created by common Twitter users, bloggers and hallyu websites.

The Dark Side of Fame: Sasaeng Stalkers

Since its beginnings, K-pop has awakened idol adoration in young fans that will fly long distance and spend a vast quantity of money on merchandise and concert tickets. Euphoria and dedication team up in a symbiotic relationship that economically sustains K-pop celebrities.

In fact, K-pop stars are known for a common phrase: "We are nothing without our fans".

However, the quandary starts when fans' devotion crosses the line of sanity to become scary, creepy stalkers willing to poison, offer sexual favours, install hidden cameras in their idols' homes and cars or send them letters written in menstrual blood.

K-pop groupies, fans or stalkers… there is a new breed of followers who make K-pop idols' lives real nightmares. How are they called? "Sasaeng" or "private fans" –female, starting as young as 13 to about 22- whose obsession with their idols have driven them to commit horrible and disturbing deeds.

What started out as groups of teenaged girls banding together to support their K-pop idols has turned into a chilling, violent cult who have made it their vital goal to ensure that they are noticed by their idols, by hook or by crook.

Top K-wave stars targeted include JYJ, TVXQ, B2ST, Jang Geun Suk, Big Bang, Super Junior, SHINee and SS501's Kim Hyun Joong.

Korean managers speaking to Korean media have revealed that popular stars have between 500 to 1,000 sasaeng fans. On a daily basis, idols have at least 100 full-time stalkers on their hind.

JYJ and TVXQ, especially, have been victims of this persecution. For instance, TVXQ's phone lines have been tapped and personal conversations recorded, while their apartment was broken into and sasaeng attempted to kiss them while they were sleeping. Alarmingly so, TVXQ's Yunho was poisoned by an anti-fan who gave him a drink with an adhesive mixed in and after this he had to get his stomach pumped. Likewise, JYJ's Yoochum had sasaeng fans installing spy cameras in his parking lot and taking pictures of him.

Sasaeng's eccentricities are not limited to terrorising their idols, but it also affects their lifestyles. After a full day of stalking, instead of sleeping at home, they spend the night at Internet cafes; many skip schools while others drop out completely. Their lives are full of these K-pop stars memorabilia, shared information about their idols whereabouts and private life on social media plus K-pop photos all around.

Rumours point at some sasaeng earn money by prostitution to support their day-to-day stalking which is an expensive quest as many of the sasaeng hire special taxi drivers to follow their idols or even hire companies to spy on their idols.