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From September 16 to 18, the IURC AA Community of Practice (CoP) 3 on Smart Sustainable Tourism and the IURC LAC CoP on Nighttime Economy hosted a study visit in Jeonju, Republic of Korea. This visit was an outcome of the EU Competitive Fund, through which participants from Braga (Portugal), Coimbra (Portugal), Gangtok (India), Genoa (Italy), Jeonju (Republic of Korea), Prato (Italy), and Seberang Perai (Malaysia) collaborated during the 2026 Jeonju Future Cities Forum.
The 2026 Jeonju Future Cities Forum is an international platform where global city leaders and experts convene to discuss innovative strategies and technological solutions for sustainable urban development. Held under the theme “Global Urban Tourism: Evolving into the Future,” this year’s event explores how cities can reshape their tourism economies through innovation in sectors such as smart tech, MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions), gastronomy, and nighttime tourism.
The forum highlighted the strong cooperation between the EU and its Member States, as demonstrated by the active participation of the Ambasciata d’Italia Seoul (Embassy of Italy in Seoul). During the first day of the event, Italian Ambassador Emilia Gatto contributed to this collaborative spirit by presenting on the global competitiveness of Italian gastronomic cities.
Session 4: Nighttime Tourism
On September 18, cities participated in two sessions at the 2026 Jeonju Future Cities Forum: “Session 4: Nighttime Tourism – A New Brand of Urban Vitality” and “Session 5: Smart Tourism – A Sustainable Future Shaped by People and Technology.” The sessions included keynote presentations and discussions. Over 100 audience members joined the sessions.
In the morning session on nighttime tourism, Barbara Poggio (Genoa, Italy) and Nuno Gouveia (Braga, Portugal), on behalf of the IURC LAC CoP Nighttime Economy, presented their cities’ nighttime economy and tourism policies. Both presentations particularly highlighted the Global Cities After Dark network, an international programme aimed at connecting cities worldwide for their nighttime economy development.
Barbara Poggio presented on “Turning the Night into Urban Content: Genoa’s Night Tourism Policy and Urban Vitality Strategy,” sharing key actions that Genoa has taken to boost its nighttime economy and tourism. Leveraging summer festivals like the Notte di San Giovanni (St. John’s Night) and New Year’s Eve events, Genoa provides lively and inclusive forms of entertainment to thousands of citizens and tourists. Furthermore, Genoa implements the 2026-2030 New Management Plan of the Genoa World Heritage Site: the Strade Nuove and the Palazzi dei Rolli system to balance urban development with heritage conservation.
Nuno Gouveia then presented on “Awakening the Night in a Historic City: Braga’s Nighttime Economy Policy and the Balance between Residents and Tourism.” As a lead partner of the URBACT network, Braga is testing three key initiatives: the Braga After Dark Guide, the Braga After Dark Festival, and the “A Night for Everyone” campaign. Braga also works on collecting open data to evaluate and improve the nighttime economy, with resident satisfaction serving as a headline indicator.
Session 5: Smart Tourism
After the morning session, Paolo Guarnieri (Prato, Italy), Cristiana Eliseu (Coimbra, Portugal), Rachel Teh (Seberang Perai, Malaysia), Gayden Chopel Bhutia (Gangtok, India), and Seunghan Lee (Jeonju, Republic of Korea) participated in the next session on “Smart Tourism – A Sustainable Future Shaped by People and Technology.” The session began with welcome remarks from the Mayor of Gangtok, Tshering Palden Bhutia, and IURC Asia & Australasia Team Leader Pablo Gándara.
During the session, the IURC CoP 3 participants presented their cities’ smart and sustainable tourism policies.
Paolo Guarnieri opened the floor by presenting Prato’s “phygital destination” model – an approach that combines deep heritage preservation with tech-enabled tourism personalization. Particularly, its EPIC project aims to enhance the immersive tourism experience with VR technology, namely FlyOver Prato and EPICopter Simulators.
Next, Cristiana Eliseu introduced Coimbra’s data-based tourism policy and SHIFT Coimbra. Funded by the European Urban Initiative, Coimbra is testing SHIFT Coimbra, which uses Large Language Models and AI tools to support the development of a sustainable tourism destination and create better tourism experiences.
After the presentations from the European cities, Rachel Teh presented smart tourism experiments in the context of small and medium cities, Seberang Perai. She introduced six dimensions that keep smart tourism balanced and inclusive in Seberang Perai: Design, Density, Diversity, Digitalization, Decarbonization, and Democracy. Seberang Perai also distributes accountability among four key stakeholders to deliver public outcomes: public, people, private, and partners.
From Gangtok, Gayden Chopel Bhutia presented the city’s vision for a wellness city. Gangtok is one of India’s most successful pedestrian-friendly urban spaces, lined with public spaces and cultural attractions. With the municipal goal of focusing on the wellness and mental health-oriented development of the city, Gangtok implemented projects like Wellness Parks and Wellness Walks around the municipal area to make Gangtok a sustainable wellness city.
Finally, Seunghan Lee presented Jeonju’s immediate tourism challenges of short stays and fragmented data, along with respective goals for the future. Jeonju proposed the Smart Heritage-to-Stay Route Pilot, which combines LLM-based AI tools with a citizen participation model to co-create sustainable smart tourism journeys. The IURC partner cities and private stakeholders were mentioned as cooperation partners for this project.
Moderating Session 5 on Smart Tourism, Pablo Gándara, Team Leader of IURC Asia & Australasia, stressed that smart tourism is not simply about deploying more technology, but about using data, digital tools and international cooperation to create better places for both visitors and residents. He highlighted the value of IURC in helping cities adapt ideas to their own contexts and turn exchange into concrete pilot actions, pointing to the proposed Jeonju Smart Heritage-to-Stay Route as one example. In his closing remarks, he summed up the discussion by noting that the smartest destinations are those that best use technology to strengthen local wellbeing, identity and resilience.
Bringing Young Voices to the Table
A remarkable achievement of the IURC’s participation in the 2026 Jeonju Future Cities Forum was the youth involvement during the Youth Reflection Lab.
Over 30 students from Jeonbuk National University’s School of International Studies sat at the table with the IURC CoP 3 presenters to discuss the question, “How can we make tourism more attractive and vibrant while protecting local culture, communities, and the environment?” The discussions were moderated by a student mobilizer in each group.
After the group discussions, each group presented their creative ideas for making tourism smart and sustainable, such as developing an AI-based tourism app, language-friendly videos to guide first-time tourists, and tour vouchers and coupons to boost the local economy.
Beyond just cooperation among adults, this session provided an invaluable opportunity for the IURC to practice a participatory model for shared challenges and make international cooperation more diverse and inclusive.
Cooperation Goes Beyond One-Off Exchange
As a key highlight of the forum, the Mayor of Gangtok (Tshering Palden Bhutia) and the Mayor of Jeonju jointly signed the Declaration of Collaboration for sustainable tourism development.
Furthermore, the IURC cities signed a Joint Statement of Cooperation on the Global Cities After Dark Movement to create new opportunities for intercity collaboration in the field of nighttime policies and the economy.
These agreements provide an opportunity for the IURC network to advance cooperation in the future and create tangible outcomes for sustainable development.
Written by Yejin Lee, Project Associate in CityNet, IURC Korean Helpdesk
(korea.helpdesk@iurc.eu)