The Life Cycle of Tour Destination Hot Spring in Korea

한국 온천관광목적지의 수명주기

When tour site is being used by people for the destination of tour, it has a life, or it will lose its life as a tour site. Therefore this paper aims to, based on Butler's theory, has chosen 46 hot spring spots in Korea which are legally assigned and presently running, and tried to analyze the life cycles, the stage of dispositional characteristics, and visitors' favoritism, and to try to find activating method which is not decline. Out of 46 spots, 29 Places were found on the stage of development, which took high percentage, 4 were on the growing stage, 5 were on the mature stage, 5 were on the stagnation or decline stage and the rest 3 were on the stage of rejuvenation. Geographically, Korean hot springs were located on the plain or mountainous areas mostly, and less of them were on hills and coast lines. In water quality, most of places had simple water while the places with salt and sulfur contained water were marked low rate. The temperatures of hot spring water were variable between $25^{\circ}C{\sim}78^{\circ}C$, but the older hot springs were hotter than new ones. After observing the relationship between disposition characteristics and life cycles, the geographical locations and the matter of approach were found as majour influential factors to the life cycles of them. The type of mountainous areas were observed slow progress in life cycle, due to traffic problem, until the road expansion or pavement work were done. Meanwhile, the suburban ones adjacent to big cities were favored by hot spring tourists due to their easy approach and easy traffic. The new born hot springs with such conditions have shown the fast growth. As studied above, since the hot springs were supposed to be for recuperation and vacational, a hot spring with better recreational and accommodational facilities was more favored by tourists than the one with pretty interior decorations. It was because the tour purpose of people has been switched from single purpose to multi one. Thus, the suggestion for activating a declining hot spring and bringing people in them is to develop new and attractive tour resources, expanding the related area, maintaining good quality of water, developing a complex site for long-term tour, developed traffic routs, hot spring festivals, utilizing adjacent tour resources, preparing public water supply system, and assigning as special tour zone.

관광지는 관광객에 의하여 이용이 지속될 때 관광목적지로서 그 생명력과 가치를 유지할 수 있으며, 그렇지 못할 경우 그 관광지는 곧 쇠퇴해 버리게 된다. 따라서 본 연구는 버틀러에 의해 제시된 관광목적지 수명주기이론을 바탕으로 한국에 분포하는 온천관광지 중 현재 이용중에 있는 46개 온천지구를 대상으로 수명주기 단계와 분포특성 및 이용객의 행태를 분석하여 관광목적지가 쇠퇴하지 않고 더욱 활성화하는 방안을 모색하고자 하였다. 분석대상으로 삼은 46개 온천지구 중 개발단계가 29개지구로 가장 많은 비중을 차지하고 있으며 성장단계 4개지구, 성숙단계 5개지구, 침체 및 쇠퇴단계 5개지구, 재활단계 3개지구로 나타났다. 이러한 수명주기에 영향을 미치는 분포특성 및 이용객의 행태를 분석한 결과 지형적 위치, 접근도에 의한 분포특성이 수명주기에 많은 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으며, 관광객들의 관광행태가 단일목적의 관장에서 다목적 관광으로 전환되고 있는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 온천관장저의 활성화 방안으로는 온천지구의 확대지정과 온천수 보존, 장기체류형 관광지로의 복합개발, 도로망의 확충, 주변관광자원의 활용, 공동급수의 시행, 관광특구의 지정 등 관광객을 견인할 수 있는 새로운 관광매력물을 꾸준히 개발해야 할 것이다.