This study set out to investigate the establishment process of Seonbichon and its exhibition organization and utilization. Based on the investigator’s field survey data on how they organized and turned the Seonbi culture, an intangible cultural asset, into a tourist resource, the study examined the values and prospects of Seonbichon as a cultural and tourist resource.
Seonbichon was established under the initiative of the concerned national agencies and opened in 2004 to build local identity. For the village, traditional Korean houses were copied on the selected old houses scattered around in Yeongju City that fitted the theme of the village without any dimension changes. Added to those houses were the pavilion, water mill, treadmill, and smithy to reproduce a village called Seonbichon. They were complemented by an educational facility that mimicked the Ganghakdang of Sosuseowon and a resting place called the Jeojatgeori to create a cultural and tourist destination. Programs for visitors to experience were deployed all around the village to put the space to efficient use. Since the houses in the village are models, it is allowed for visitors to go into them and touch anything unlike Hahoi and Yangdong Villages where people are actually living. As a result, Seonbichon generates more exhibition effects than those which only allow for sightseeing with eyes. Its exhibition approach has various effects on the viewers.
The reproduced houses do not just stand in a row; they tell stories on topics related to the Seonbi culture according to the architectural features, the personality of residents, size, shape, and furniture characteristics to help visitors to understand the Seonbi culture through the houses and their artifacts. It was intended to have visitors experience the intangible Seonbi culture, run an accommodation and experience program more effectively, and motivate visitors to participate in experiential activities for immersion.
The Sosuseowon, Sosu Museum and Seonbichon complement one another for the elements they cannot shot individually as a relic or cultural facility. The whole area was designed to allow visitors to take a look around Sosuseowon whose old conditions are kept intact, view the exhibitions on the local history, culture, and figures at Sosu Museum, and experience the Seonbi culture at Seonbichon equipped with the traditional village, thus receiving great responses from visitors for its fun and educational effects. In addition, the recently added Seonbimunhwasuryoenwon enhances the quality of Seonbi culture experience with its educational programs.
Seonbichon offers a place to exhibit and experience the Seonbi culture and, most importantly, runs an accommodation and experience program. It helps visitors reflect on the modern culture, in which the spirit of perfect virtue, righteousness, courtesy, and knowledge is collapsing, through the culture of Seonbi spirit by demonstrating the life aspects of Seonbi and promoting the unique local culture and provides them with a cultural experience space to participate in an educational program for the Seonbi culture and a cultural accommodation and experience program.
With additional program developments such as digital content, further convenience, and ongoing housing maintenance, Seonbichon will have values as a sustainable cultural and tourist resource and be able to present its accommodation and experience program as great assets to introduce the traditional Korean culture to foreign tourists as well as domestic ones. In future, they need to develop festivals, performances, dramas, movies, food, cultural relic exploration, educational content, and characters through Seonbi culture-based OSMU to increase its value added and turn casual visitors into happy regular visitors to the village via an ongoing series of things to see and enjoy. In addition, they need to make efforts to develop tourism in connection with surrounding areas.