(Fort Lee, NJ) - No, it’s not what you think. This doesn’t involve guns or nuclear weapons. KNTO (The Korea National Tourism Organization) is launching an invasion using their top-notch customer service as its major weapon. KNTO hopes to attract tourists mainly with its user-friendly website along with other services.

KNTO, founded in 1962 as a government-funded company, is responsible for tourism promotion, tourism resource development, personnel training programs, as well as tourism policy implementation. Starting from 1980, the company has been focusing excessively on domestic and international tourism promotion. From its humble beginnings, the company has grown both in size and influence — having attracted over 5 million visitors in the year 2000.

KNTO is a leader in the industry because of its ability to sufficiently provide tourists with what they need. They offer numerous services including the Tourist Information Center and the 1330 Travel Phone. Tourists in Korea can stop by the Tourist Information Center to do anything from picking up free brochures to browsing the Internet to help plan out an eventful stay in Korea. Those who cannot physically make it to the Tourist Information Center can always utilize the 1330 Travel Phone. To make it more convenient for foreigners, KNTO will be adding an Internet phone option in July. Tourists can call the 1330 Travel Phone via the Internet. Representatives, fluent in English, Japanese, and Chinese, will be on call 24 hours a day to answer any questions that tourists may have. Also, for further accessibility, KNTO has twenty offices around the world. Ultimately, what tops KNTO off as one of the best tourist information companies is its award-winning tourism website, Tour2Korea.com.

Recently, KNTO has been increasing their efforts on e-marketing and online service. A great example of this is the current effort to promote Korean tourism on the Yahoo! network (Yahoo!com, Yahoo!Japan, Yahoo!China) towards the end of 2003. Korean tourism is also being promoted on 70 search engines in seven different languages. In addition, KNTO has been steadily making improvements to Tour2Korea.com to augment their on-line services.

Tour2Korea.com, first developed between March of 2001 and 2002, was launched in eight different languages. However, between January and March of 2003, the site underwent a major reconstruction effort and was re-opened with a new look and better services.

So what differentiates KNTO’s website (http://tour2korea.com) from other informational websites? Tour2Korea offers in-depth and up-to-date information coupled with relevant visuals that surpasses any presented on other websites. Certain features like the Travel Spotlight and the Events page are updated weekly. Also, Tour2Korea recently added a T2K Zone. The T2K Zone serves as a community board where tourists can exchange information about virtually all aspects of their stay in Korea. It provides a good way to make new friends, join clubs and even learn Korean.

In an effort to continually improve their services, Tour2Korea.com has recently launched a new feature on their website — Bookings & Guides. Tourists can utilize this feature to help make reservations for flights, hotels, transportation, as well as tours. Tour2Korea.com also offers free Goodwill Guides for tourists through the Bookings & Guides page. With so much information and services floating around, Tour2Korea is constantly making efforts to make sure the users can find the best material and service with a click of a button. For additional information, visit http://tour2korea.com.

For more information, contact Joel Perler, PR/Marketing Manager, at 1-800-868-7567 or jperler@kntoamerica.com