With $500,000 government investment for a Korean TV drama, the Northern Marianas stands to gain some $24 million in economic benefits impact over three years, a project proponent said.<\/p>\n
In a presentation, Asiana Airlines general manager Kwang Joong Kim said that the economic impact this year alone would be $12 million, counting 30,000 visitors from Korea.<\/p>\n
He cited that based on a 2003 survey, an average Korean expenditure per visit is $407.<\/p>\n
Total cost per visit reaches $1,170 per person, inclusive of accommodation and airfare.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Kim said the CNMI would benefit $20.4 million with projected 50,000 tourists.<\/p>\n
In 2008, the group aims to attract 60,000 Koreans, translating to $24.4 million.<\/p>\n
Kim is pushing for the filming in the CNMI of a Korean TV soap opera, which recently received a funding sponsorship of $500,000 from the Marianas Visitors Authority.<\/p>\n
The drama will be produced by Fly Entertainment led by producer\/CEO Shin Byung-Chul. It has no official title as yet.<\/p>\n
The shooting takes about 30 days beginning middle of May this year. The airing is set in July on SBS, one of the three largest TV networks in Korea.<\/p>\n
The soap opera, a Cinderella-type story, consists of 20 episodes. Five of these will be filmed on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.<\/p>\n
MVA has been assured that the NMI will be featured in 20 episodes.<\/p>\n
OPPORTUNITIES<\/p>\n
Kim said that drama TV programs have a minimum of 24 percent viewership in Korea, which consists of 49 million people.<\/p>\n
Korean dramas are also exported to other Asian countries: Japan, with 19 percent viewership; Taiwan, 24.5 percent; China, 18.6 percent; and Hong Kong, 3.3 percent.<\/p>\n
There are also a growing demand in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia for these kinds of television productions.<\/p>\n
SHIN\u2019S RECORD<\/p>\n
Shin has produced a number of TV dramas such as Scent of A Man, South of Sun, Love in Paris, and Hong Kong Express.<\/p>\n
Love in Paris, which was shot in Paris, reportedly recorded 50 percent viewership in Korean, and was syndicated in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China.<\/p>\n
As a result, \u201ctourists flocked to Paris especially to the sites where the film was shot,\u201d said Kim\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
During the first two months of airing Hong Kong Express, Hong Kong reportedly received 2,500 people from Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cProgram continues its momentum, HKTB is requesting for filming of another program,\u201d Kim said. <\/p>\n
Meantime, under the plan, Asiana Airlines would provide free tickets to the drama actors and crew, estimated to be 80 to 100.<\/p>\n
In-kind contribution from the CNMI, including the free airfare would total $462,000 while the cash\u2014MVA sponsorship\u2014totals $500,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With $500,000 government investment for a Korean TV drama, the Northern Marianas stands to gain some $24 million in economic benefits impact over three years, a project proponent said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}