K-culture doing OK in Sunshine Land

Fans flock to sites associated with boy band

Deep in South Korea's hinterlands lies a perfect replica of 1900s Seoul: welcome to Sunshine Land, the latest K-drama theme park to cash in on booming K-culture tourism.

Fans of K-pop mega group BTS have long flocked to the South to see sites associated with the boy band, from the dorms where they slept as trainees to recent music video shoot locations.

But as the popularity of South Korean drama has soared overseas—it is the most-viewed non-English content on Netflix, the platform's data shows—more and more tourists are planning trips around their favourite shows.

The idea that foreign tourists would pay good money and drive hundreds of miles out of the capital Seoul to see a K-drama set seemed "crazy" to tour guide Sophy Yoon until she saw one of her guests break down in tears at Sunshine Land.

"At that moment, it hit me: For me, it was just a studio, but for them, it was something much more," she said.

Preserved from the set of popular 2018 historical series Mr Sunshine, the location in Nonsan, 170km from Seoul, is replete with painstaking replicas of everything from a turn-of-the-century tram to South Korea's most famous Buddhist bell.

"It's like when we go to the Spanish steps in Rome where Audrey Hepburn had ice cream," Yoon said, referring to the 1953 classic movie Roman Holiday.