Korea International Boat Show and the national kick-start programme

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 12 Jun 2010 In Asian terms it’s bigger than Ben Hur, and it’s got more hoop-la than a three-ring circus. It’s definitely bigger than any other boat show in Asia. It’s the Korea International Boat Show, the WMRT Korea Match Cup and the Gyeonggi-do Marine Festival all rolled into one marine-themed extravaganza. There’s a marine industry conference. A pop concert. And fireworks.

“We want to make this the No 1 marine event in Asia,” declared the recently re-elected Governor of Gyeonggi Province, Kim Moon-Soo. “And now that I am here for another four year term, I will make sure that it happens.”

The third Korea International Boat Show opened its gates to trade and press on Wednesday with an Opening Ceremony that involved a military drill team, a military band, a parade of crews competing in the WMRT Korea Match Cup, a singing diva, video footage of the last two years’ events, the National Anthem, a small symphony orchestra accompanying a choir and a duet of opera singers, a martial arts display and a Moment of Silence – accompanied by music. The speeches were numerous but brief and to the point. Patrick Lim, President of the WMRT described the Korea Match Cup as “the benchmark against which all the other WMRT events are measured” and called Jeonggok Harbour “a world class venue”. Some may agree, some may not… but after a mere 1¾ hours, KIBS was declared officially open.

In 2008 a reported 400,000 people passed through the gate of the inaugural KIBS, but it looks as if numbers are substantially down this year. But the summary of the Show itself will come later – for the time being the main preoccupation has been the 2010 Asia Marine Conference and a substantial number of presentations about the substantial plans for the development of the Korean marine leisure industry.

Where to begin? This is big, and complicated, so we’ll try to do it in bite-sized pieces. There's more than one story.

Gyeonggi Province includes metropolitan Seoul, and has a population of 22 million people. The theory goes that the 2008 legislative declaration of a five-day working week would leave everyone with nothing to do on the weekend, and Koreans with hard-saved money in the bank would rush out and look for some leisure-time entertainment. Like boating. Or sailing. And that substantial government support of a fledgling marine industry would produce a whole new manufacturing sector with a ready-made and ready-to-consume market.

The first part of the infrastructure story, the one that supports the newly-invented marine leisure sector, is the building of 43 marinas around the coast of South Korea. Yes, 43. 27 are in the planning stage, 11 are said to be “developed” and a further five are “under development”. Nice work if you can get it, and happen to be in the marina business. A case of “build it, and they will come” – one solution to the chicken-and-egg conundrum… if there are no facilities there’s a problem encouraging people to go boating, but if nobody is going boating, then why build the facilities?

For those of us in Asia who have heard this sort of story more than once, it may sound a little too good to be true. But do not underestimate the propensity of the Koreans to do what they say they are going to do, quickly, when they have made up their mind. They call it “balli-balli”, which means “hurry up” or “let’s do it, let’s get going”.

If anyone can smother a country’s coastline in marinas, and use them to kick-start a quantum shift in a nation’s leisure habits, then Korea can.