Tourism is always a good way to revive interest around places that might be getting forgotten or seeing a lot of immigration out of it.
Places often revamp or advertise certain unique features of the specific location in order to create intrigue around it and get people to visit it.
Tourism is actually something that many organisations and such are also giving attention to, considering that the tourism and hospitality industries were some of the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Domestic and international lockdowns and intense discouragement of travelling heavily impacted many places that used to make most of their revenue through tourists.
Something similar is happening at the ‘Purple Islands’ of South Korea that are once again marketing these twin islands entirely drenched in the colour purple.
What Are These Purple Islands?
The purple islands are the Banwol and Bakji Islands located in South Korea known for being entirely covered in the purple colour.
The colour that these islands are popular for was inspired by a native balloon flower and was a part of a government tourism project.
Under this particular project, the islands were given a fund of around US$ 4.25 million. The residents and authorities at the islands used these funds to turn their entire town purple. From roads, bridges, houses and more all were painted a pretty purple, there are even people who choose to wear all purple.
Not just that, but it also involved the residents planting purple coloured flora like asters and lavenders around the islands.
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Various cafes also used this to attract customers, adopting a full purple theme and even offering food in the same colour. Indoors were painted purple and cafes and restaurants had purple plates, purple rice and such on the menu.
The islands have been trending recently once more with a video going viral about the island.
As per reports, Jung Soon – shim an 88-year-old resident at the island said “In the morning, I dress up in purple from head to toe including my underwear and shoes, and that makes me happy.”
In quite an interesting trivia, people who visit these islands wearing the colour purple are allowed to enter them for free.
The residents, who are just a little over a hundred in number actually embrace the tourists who visit the islands.
As per a 79-year-old villager Shin Deok-im, “Old people like us have a secluded life here, since all the young people left the town,” he further added that “I’m glad to see young people and kids visiting to see our town. They are all like my grandchildren.”
There are three footbridges that connect the two islands to a larger one near it and all of them are painted purple.
There are even benches all along these bridges that have the slogan ‘I Purple You’ written on them. The story behind it is pretty sweet as it was created by K-pop band BTS’ member V or Kim Taehyung during a fan meet in 2016.
For the phrase also said as ‘Borahae’ in Korean he said “Do you know what purple means? Purple is the last color of the rainbow colors, so it means I will trust and love you for a long time.”
Purple is also a special colour for the BTS fans who often use purple hearts as a sign of affection withing the fandom and to the artists.
A total of around 28,000 square metres of roofs have been painted a purple or lilac colour since 2015 when the project was started.
The project got its official launch in 2019 and in just around 2 years it has managed to bring over 487,000 people to these islands.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Moneycontrol
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: South Korea Purple Islands, South Korea’s Banwol Bakji Islands, South Korea Bakji Islands, South Korea Banwol Islands, Banwol Bakji Islands, south korea, south korea tourism, purple islands, tourist attraction, south korea tourist attraction, i purple you, bts purple you bench, travel, unique travel
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