The Impact of the Tourism Hub City Development Project on Tourism Demand in Surrounding Areas : Focusing on Busan Metropolitan City

Purpose - This study aims to assess how Busan’s Tourism Hub City Project influences tourism demand in surrounding areas and whether it effectively promotes demand dispersion and regional integration to surrounding regions.Design, data, and methodology - The surrounding areas of Busan were limited to the five regions with the highest inflow and outflow of tourists based on tourist movement patterns, resulting in a total of six surrounding regions being selected. The number of visitors was used as a proxy variable for tourism demand(total visitor, local visitor, non-resident visitor) to estimate the short-term and long-term impacts of the Tourism Hub City Development Project in Busan on the number of tourists in the surrounding areas.Result - The results of this study indicate that in geographically adjacent areas to Busan in terms of administrative boundaries, a significant increase in the total number of visitors was observed over time following the implementation of the project. However, in regions that are not geographically adjacent, no significant increase in the number of tourists was found.Conclusions - It is concluded that the spillover effect of the Tourism Hub City Development Project in Busan on surrounding areas is influenced by geographical proximity and transportation networks.