Busan's Haeundae district is looking beyond its famous beaches as it takes on a new role as South Korea's first "global tourism zone”.
The designation comes amid a hike in international arrivals to Busan, with more than 2.42 million foreign visitors recorded in the first half of 2026, up 43.9% year on year.
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Haeundae itself in particular has seen growing international interest, with foreign visitor numbers in June rising 65% compared with the same period last year, said Kim Sung-soo, mayor of Haeundae, Busan in interviews with local news outlets.
Now, authorities want to transform Haeundae into a destination suitable for “all four seasons”, added the mayor.
A total of six billion won will be invested into Haeundae over two years across 11 projects. The 6.2 sqkm tourism zone stretches from Haeundae Beach to Gunam-ro, the Busan Cinema Center, Nurimaru, BEXCO, and Dalmaji Hill.
Rather than focusing on large-scale construction, the plan is to focus on developing year-round new tourism content and services, in what mayor cream describes as “tournomics” – where tourism contributes to the local economy.
These include specialised programmes for Dalmaji-gil, night festivals, marine leisure content in Songjeong, and promoting Haeundae as a "coffee city."
New digital services are also planned to make travel easier for international visitors. These include 24-hour AI-powered unmanned tourist information centres, smart payment systems for foreign travellers and AI-enabled cameras to monitor crowd density.
On the transport front, the government is also looking at increasing accessibility from other cities, by increasing the frequency of KTX train services.