South Korean royal palace sites face damage amid visitor surge

The number of visitors to South Korea's royal palace sites has surged nearly 2.7 times from 6.7 million in 2021 to 17.81 million last year. However, safety management personnel have remained stagnant at approximately 400 people over the last five years.

This imbalance has caused the ratio of safety staff per 10,000 visitors to drop from 0.6 in 2021 to just 0.25 last year. Consequently, cultural heritage damage is increasing. At Gyeongbokgung Palace, approximately 60% of the holes found in the paper windows (changhoji) of major halls like Geunjeongjeon and Gyotaejeon are attributed to visitors.

Currently, there are no effective regulations to penalize such damage, forcing staff to perform daily repairs by patching paper. Issues with foreign tourists have also been noted, including an incident where tourists assaulted a security guard and left the country immediately after police investigation, and another where a tourist was fined only 50,000 won for urinating near palace walls. Representative Lee Jung-moon has called on the National Heritage Administration to establish comprehensive measures and effective sanctions as visitor numbers approach the 20 million mark.