Kwon Young-doo, proprietor of a personal art gallery in Seoul’s historic Bukchon Hanok Village, is concerned approximately an impending curfew coverage aimed toward mitigating overtourism within the area. The curfew, set for a tribulation in November and to be officially released in March subsequent year, will limit traveler get right of entry to to particular areas of Bukchon from 5 p.M. (0800 GMT) to 10 a.M. Fines of as much as one hundred,000 received ($72) may be imposed on violators. “Who could need to visit?” stated Kwon, the owner of the Asian Cultural Art Museum, who moved to the historical area 18 years ago. “They’ll depart with a awful impact of South Korea.” Bukchon Hanok Village, with its slim winding alleyways in hilly northern Seoul, dates again to the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897). The location has end up a popular vacationer destination, in particular after being featured on a TV display a decade ago. Tourists and Koreans alike are drawn to the neighbourhood for its quaint houses with signature wooden columns and doorways, a courtyard and tiled roof. However, multiplied tourism has come to be extra than an inconvenience for the residents, who bitch about noise, littering, public urination and invasion of privacy. Some travelers were caught on surveillance cameras trying to input private houses or peeking interior with out permission, generating friction with locals. Many residents have selected to depart, leading to a 27.6% drop within the village’s population over the last 10 years, according to the Jongno district office. The vicinity attracted approximately 6 million site visitors last yr, as compared with its resident population of around 6,a hundred. Chung Moon-hun, the Jongno district head, says the purpose is to guard the rights of residents and the regulations might be adjusted if important to make it powerful. The area in which curfew hours and fines may be imposed is about 34,000 square metres, about the size of 5 football fields. But residents are sceptical approximately the coverage’s effectiveness bringing up loopholes such as exemptions for vacationers staying in a single day in hanok accommodations. They additionally blame the proliferation of corporate-run hanok stays for disrupting their lives. Since 2020, government have loosened restrictions on conventional Korean houses providing accommodation, ensuing in a surge in corporate-run hanok stays in the residential regions, residents say. In 2010, 10 conventional houses had been registered in Bukchon under the call Traditional Korean Housing Experience Businesses; by October 2024, that variety had ballooned to 116, in step with the district office. “People come for just a day to experience themselves, and the noise from parties is extremely loud,” said Kim Eun-mee, who lives subsequent to a hanok stay. Clearing trash in the front of her home has come to be a chore she has to tend to several instances a day. “It’s regularly hard to keep a normal each day recurring because of disturbances like humans dragging suitcases around even in the course of the early hours, which often wakes me up.” Lee Dong-woo, CEO of hanok live booking platform BUTLER.LEE, stated the enterprise took off when owners who discovered it tough to renovate or maintain vintage homes entrusted the belongings to hospitality companies. “These requests are riding the expansion, now not due to the fact we are actively evicting present day residents to perform hanok remains, that is completely untrue,” Lee who manages 17 hanok remains in Bukchon said. Tourists, in the meantime, are divided over the curfew. Some agree the citizens’ best of existence is vital. Others chafe at the idea of getting fined for actually strolling down a public street. There also are questions about enforcement; how to inform travelers from residents, a way to make foreigners pay the high-quality, and the language barrier.
