This study was conducted with a focus on Hanbok Experience among Traditional Culture Experiences that are actively executed in Jeonju Hanok Village. Why tourists who visited Jeonju Hanok Village wear Hanbok, how they do the Hanbok Experience, what kinds of feelings they feel while doing the Hanbok Experience, and what meanings they are releasing by sharing pictures of doing Hanbok Experience online have been analyzed. And through this analysis, what influences Traditional Culture Experience Tourism of Jeonju Hanok Village have on tourists was verified.
This study was carried out based on qualitative research method, utilizing anthropological fieldwork and phenomenological research method. A participation observation and an in-depth interview were performed on tourists who are doing Hanbok Experience in Jeonju Hanok Village, and an in-depth interview was performed on the public officials at the time of Jeonju Hanok Village development business, promoters who made Hanbok Experience a fashion, and merchants running a Hanbok rental shop. In addition, reviews on Hanbok Experience tourists who tried the Hanbok Experience wrote online were collected and their common meanings in regard to Hanbok Experience were analyzed.
Specifically, this study organized the process of Jeonju Hanok Village turning into a tourist site and the plan, change process, and the current status of Traditional Culture Experience Tourism of Jeonju Hanok Village through an examination of ‘Master Plan for Fostering Jeonju Traditional Culture City’ business. In Jeonju Hanok Village where an image of tradition was formed based on such process, the process of ‘Hanbok Day’, Hanbok Experience, and Hanbok rental shops expanding as a momentum for Hanbok Experience to appear was examined. Through this process, the background and the present condition in which Hanbok Experience could have been invigorated in Jeonju Hanok Village could be identified, and through the verbal statement experience review of tourists who did Hanbok Experience, the motivation for experience, experience method, feelings felt through the experience, influence of experience, and others were analyzed.
The tourists who visited Jeonju Hanok Village feels Jeonju Hanok Village is an appropriate place for a traditional culture experience due to the traditional factors including a cultural heritage, Hanok, and a stone wall. Therefore, tourists show a spontaneity to wear traditional clothing, Hanbok, in a traditional culture city Jeonju and the traditional place in the center, Jeonju Hanok Village. Also, they feel unusual, non-daily, traditional, and other emotions as they meet Hanbok Experience as a form of play. At the same time, by taking pictures to commemorate one’s own self wearing Hanbok, sharing them online, and writing reviews on Hanbok Experience, they show an exhibitionistic aspect.
In other words, it was confirmed that tourists wish to do the Hanbok Experience as a Traditional Culture Experience because they feel the joy of experience and a sense of getting out of their own daily routines by doing the Hanbok Experience in a traditional space of an atmosphere different from daily life.
This study is relevant as it deals with aspects that had been lacking analysis on the experience and meaning of Hanbok Experience among existing studies on Hanbok Experience through an in-depth analysis on tourists who do the Hanbok Experience. Also, it can contribute to the understanding and analysis of meanings about Traditional Culture Experience Tourism and clothes experience tourism. On the other hand, even though in this study, only Hanbok Experiences have been analyzed, in the future, it can be expanded into other clothes experience tourism such as clothes from enlightenment period and school uniform experience.