The Sansta Village at Buncheon Station (in Bonghwa-gun, North Gyeongsang Province) has successfully established itself as one of the best tourist attractions for winter holiday makers.
According to S. Korean rail operator Korail, the Santa Village at Buncheon Station attracted about 134,000 tourists in just 58 days (from Dec. 19 2015 to Feb. 14, 2016), up roughly 26 percent from the number of visitors (110,000) recorded during the winter season of 2014, the first year of its opening.
The Santa Village had an average of 1,200 daily visitors on weekdays with an average of 4,000 visitors daily on weekends. The number of visitors celebrating Christmas Day on Dec. 25 last year reached a bumper 8,400, marking the highest daily visitor number.
Entering its second year, the Santa Village newly unveiled a large wind mill and a donkey-drawn Santa carriage and expanded its sledding hill. On top of that, new features such as saxophone performances and Santa’s Room (where Santa gave out presents) and the expansion of other amenities also played a role in luring in a great number of visitors last winter.
The Santa Village is definitely breathing new life into the local economy. While the Santa Village was open, there was an increase in the number of visitors to makeshift marketplaces near Yangwon Station (the smallest train station in S. Korea) and Seungbu Station where Korail’s two special mountain trains -- the O-train circulating the central inland region of Korea and the V-train running through the Baekdudaegan mountain range -- stop. The O-train and the V-train were transformed into Christmas-themed trains for the winter season.
The Santa Village is credited with production worth 12.3 billion won and the creation of 155 jobs, according to Korail.
Korail CEO Choi Yeon-hye said: “The Santa Village is a perfect example of thinking outside the box, which the government’s creative economy initiative encourages. We grafted tourism contents onto a loss-making line, thus turning it into a lucrative one. In cooperation with the local community, we will continuously make efforts to ensure steady inflows of tourists to the Santa Village.
