• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.42-55
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to figure out the place characteristics of preferable city tourist attractions through the contents analysis of non-academic literatures such as tourist guidebooks and web materials. The most preferable Seoul tourist attractions were selected by their frequency in literatures including Namsan and Hangang as 'natural' places, Dugsu Palace and Gyungbok Palace as 'historical' places, Itaewon and Daehak-ro as 'lively-cultural' places that were classified by their relativistic character. The main findings of the research are as follows. The essential place characteristics of tourist attractions were synthesized in urban, regional and place scale respectively. While 'contrast' was found to be the most distinguished character of the tourist attractions in the urban context, 'connectivity' was found to be the most distinguished character of the tourist attractions in the regional context. In addition, both 'visibility' and 'experience' were found to be the most distinguished characters of the tourist attractions in the place context. The characteristics of these places seem to be the universal fascination factors of city tourist attractions currently recognized by ordinary citizens. We expect to further strengthen the city identity and the city tourism effect by adopting those research results systematically to the urban environment. Therefore, it is needed to vitalize the urban tourist attractions that we make them to be more 'contrasting' with urban areas surrounding them, more 'connective' with vicinity areas and more 'visibly fascinating' and 'experienced actively and meaningfully' in each place of tourist attractions.