VOL.69/2024.04

 

Travelers Return After COVID-19

 

2023.06.05

 

The trend of travel books in Korea before and after COVID-19

 

After the Korean government lifted the bar for overseas travel in 1989, the major driver behind the growth of the travel book market in the 1990s was guidebooks, which mainly delivered information about the destination country. The introduction of the Across the World (RH Korea Co., Ltd., formerly published by Random House) series, which was the translated version of the magazine How to Walk on Earth published by Diamond Big in Japan, opened the first generation of travel guidebooks in Korea. In the late 1990s, the second-generation guidebooks such as the Centuplicate Your Joy (RH Korea) series and the Just Go (Sigongsa Co., Ltd.) series published, which the foreign rights were bought from Japanese publishers and translated in Korean. Since then, those series developed along with the revised editions and Korean writers began to actively engage in content creation to keep up with more recent information and securing competitiveness, as it takes too much time in buying foreign rights, translate, and publish in Korea. Yet, as the heads of travel agencies with rich knowledge of the destination country used to hold the pen during this period, the books tended to contain tourism-based information such as historical spots and Korean restaurants included in group-tour courses, or just broad-brush information about the target country.
However, the number of Koreans going on self-guided tours skyrocketed entering the 2010s with the popularization of low-cost airlines and rapid informatization, increasing from 52.4% in 2013 to 79.7% in 2019. Also, as the mainstream moved from tour packages to self-guided tours and as the sources of travel information shifted to online platforms, the trend in the travel book market has changed significantly – books have become a practical information provider for people’s itinerary planning.

 

 

If you roughly divided Korean travel books into two categories before the pandemic, they would be guidebooks and travelogues. For guidebooks, particularly entering the third generation in the market, more publications targeted the millennial generation that searches for information about self-guided tours before their departure. The best examples were the Tripful (Easy & Books) series, similar to magazines in terms of format and composition, and the Holiday (Dream Map Books) series, which is closer to a handbook. These books were strategically published as a guidebook covering cities, not by countries, targeting consumers in their 20s and 30s that use their short vacations for traveling overseas. Also, the information they provide mainly features nice restaurants, cafes, and popular photo spots, rather than traditional tourist spots, focusing on the interests of the young generation. Travel essays, or travelogues, have also begun to reflect the consumption style of the MZ generation, who does not hesitate to spend on intangible experiences like traveling to post on their online spaces. For example, the book Just Feel This Wind Today (Sangsang Publishing) written by Chungchoon Yuri (Uri Bella), a travel writer famous for her “Instagram-able” photos taken during her trips, and Hanbok, Traveling (Purun Books), a book published after the photos of the writer traveling around the world wearing hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) went viral on the Internet, are the early examples of the “travel, take a photo, and post” trend that has now become common.

 

 

Also, as the overall travel budget was cut down with the emergence of low-cost carriers, travelers no longer have to feel responsible about or have a critical mindset towards traveling overseas. This kind of reflectivist approach was also not commonly found in Korean travel books. However, as the explosive surge in traveling was forcibly halted due to the pandemic, travel books’ content began to take a different direction. As it was their first time facing a situation where they were restrained from going on a trip regardless of their will, they were given the time to think of “why” and “how” to travel, rather than “where” they wanted to go. As the perception and freedom of traveling underwent changes, travel books began to take a different approach to travel.

 

Korean travel books experienced three changes during the pandemic

 

The first trend in Korean travel books that appeared after the pandemic is the emergence of travel books that connect traveling with sustainability or emphasize travelers’ responsibility and ethics. Of course, books have talked about ecotourism or fair travel, but the topics were not commonly dealt with before. The trend changed after the pandemic, and non-fiction travel books have begun to discuss practical or fair travel steadily.
For example, I Want to Know More About You, Traveling (Dreambooks), written by Lee Joo-Hee, a fair travel planner, is a record of the writer practicing a daily habit of carrying a handkerchief and a tumbler and participating in a tour where the local residents get the returns from the tour package. Also, environmental activist Jang Mi-Jung’s Drawing Tomorrow on the Road (Dot Books) takes a reflectivist approach to travel. In the book, she introduces all kinds of her daily habits that changed after visiting a public cultural space in Europe and being influenced by Europeans’ frugality. Finally, the book It Will be a Honeymoon, They Said (Kihyo Books) is a travelogue of a married couple who traveled to 28 countries for 355 days after marriage, volunteering in African and South American countries. These books contrast with the books about a married couple going on a world trip, which was a big trend in the past in Korea, focused on the motivation of going on a trip - quitting their job and going abroad to seek the present moment of happiness. In short, as non-fiction that “displays” traveling experiences failed to be a selling point during the pandemic when traveling was harshly limited, non-fiction that emphasizes the cause of travel and the responsibility of travelers emerged as the alternative.

 

 

Another big trend was the emergence of travelogues, which feature changes in the attitude or mindset toward traveling. People in the travel industry were hit particularly hard by the pandemic, going through significant changes in their lives and jobs as the disease took away their means of living overnight. Their stories drew the attention of readers as they could get a second-hand experience of the lives of people in the travel business that had not been spotlighted before. For example, I’m a Flight Attendant of a Flightless Plane (Apple Books), written by former flight attendant Woo Eun-Bin, talks not only about the thrill of traveling as a flight attendant but also the unknown side of the travel industry, such as the changed reality in career after the pandemic. Also, the book I’m a Minimal Nomad (Gilbut Publishers), written by former travel guide Park Gun-Woo, pinpoints the changes in his career, where he could not return to his job as a guide for three years due to the pandemic, but had to make ends meet by taking YouTube – which was only a side job before - as the main job.
Some books looked at the absence of traveling through the process of preparing for travel or trips in the past. For example, the book, The Travel Preparation Skills (Geulhangari), written by Doctor Park Jae-Young, drew attention as it suggested that “preparing for a trip” can be a hobby itself, and that traveling might not be just all about leaving the country. Also, the book I Think About Traveling Everyday (Dal Flowers) is a travelogue of an office worker who bought a world-travel flight ticket with the mileage he has been earning for a long time. From the composition point of view, the book is more like an ordinary travelogue. However, the book suggested a new direction for travel books with a narrative that ruminates on pre-pandemic travel, reflecting the changed mindset of readers after the pandemic. Its marketing strategy also targeted “travel lovers who refrained from traveling.”

 

 

The third changed trend is that vicarious satisfaction and fandoms are observed in books that feature the experiences of travel YouTubers that became very popular during the pandemic. In 2021, when everyone in the country could not even think about going abroad, some people decisively took off to other countries right after they got vaccinated – the travel YouTubers. Their videos that captured vivid overseas landscapes and local situations without any filters while almost everyone was forced to stay in their country gained great popularity among the audience, leading to popularity in the publishing market.
For example, the book Let Me Live My Own Way (Sangsang Publishing), written by Lee Won-Ji and published right before the pandemic, became a steady seller today as the writer’s YouTube channel “Wonji Lee” got popular during the pandemic. Also, the book Don’t Put Off Things that Shine (RH Korea) by YouTuber “Traveler May” and the book The More Exciting Things, The Better! (Sangsang Publishing) by Kim Ok-Sun, who is known for her YouTube channel “youlakk,” became popular books by drawing support and vicarious satisfaction from the MZ-gen subscribers, the major audience of their channels. Both were written by female YouTubers in their 20s, fresh out of college, who chose to travel after quitting their jobs. Also, they grew their YouTube channel by making videos about traveling during the pandemic, and they marketed their books based on this, securing their fans as readers. Now that YouTube has become the mainstream of travel content distribution, these books are one of the examples that reflect the changed situation in the travel book market where travel YouTubers, with their channel and fans, have a competitive edge in the playing field.

 

 

People are traveling once again with the virus going endemic

 

Entering 2023, the demand for traveling abroad has been in skyrocketing. According to the Statistics of Arrivals and Departures released by the Korea Tourism Organization, 1.78 million Koreans departed in January 2023, which is very close to 2 million, the average number of departures measured in 2018 and 2019. Large bookstores have again displayed shelves for travel books that have been gone for a while, and new travel books are pouring out onto the market. On top of the three trends discussed earlier, recently-published travel books give a glimpse of travelers’ viewpoints towards traveling that have changed after the pandemic.
The keyword “small towns” was noticeable among guidebooks. For example, Traveling in Small Towns in Japan (Planning Books), Traveling in Tuscany (Sigongsa), and A Walk in Shizuoka, a Small City in Japan (Porche Books) were published around the same time. This shows that traveling to small cities, regarded as a themed trip or a unique trip before the pandemic, is spotlighted as a popular choice. It also reflects the new mindset of travelers as they got to prefer traveling safely in less crowded cities after the pandemic, avoiding famous, overcrowded cities. The trend of “contactless” travel can also be seen in travel books published recently, which cover destinations or road trips where people can indulge in beautiful, open landscapes. For example, Again, Going South (B.read) - a travelogue of a road trip in the western US, It’s Okay, Happiness Will be Waiting for You at the End (Koala Company) - Sohn Mi-Na’s essay about a walking tour in Santiago, and Off-road Wild Hot Springs (Jisungsa) - a travelogue of wild hot springs across the Americas, are good evidence that the popularity of outdoor travel, which continued throughout the pandemic, is shifting to road trips.

 

 

One clear thing is that post-pandemic travel is different from what it used to be before, and travel books have no choice but to reflect the changed perception towards traveling. Korean travelers now strongly pursue slow and relaxing trips while interacting with the local culture, breaking away from the past tendency where they aimed at going to as many tourist spots as possible. Also, they try to invest in traveling to uncrowded regions with beautiful landscapes to get mental rest, away from crowded places. Hence, travel books are expected to concentrate on suggesting new tourist destinations and trends that suit the changed needs of travelers, while meeting the demands for traveling that have been suppressed for the past three years of the pandemic.

 

 

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Written by Kim Da-Young (Writer of Travel Trends Changing the Travel Industry (Miraebook) and head of “Hitchhickr,” a website that provides travel insights)