Jimgotkp

Dynamic Korea!!!

patriots68

I fly into Pusan a few times a year on DL via NRT and would def like a way to get tips on places to go.

tcook052

My departing for ICN Thurs. that's what's changed.

lo2e

Is there a reason that posting such a query in the Asia forum is not sufficient?

mcg1000

Good idea. let's merge the Hawaii, Alaska, California, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida, Orlando, New England, Mid-Atlantic, Washington D.C. (including Baltimore), New York City, South, Midwest, Chicago, West, Las Vegas, Mexico, Canada and Toronto forums into a North America forum while we're at it!

Population of Orlando: 2 million. Population of South Korea: 48 million.

Efrem

Number of threads in the Orlando forum with posts since June 1: 31. (Numbers for the LA, SF, Vegas, etc., forums are much higher.)

Number in the Asia forum that mention Korea or a Korean place (Seoul, etc.) in their titles: 18.

Granted, this isn't a huge difference, but I don't think it's a strong justification for a separate forum either.

lin821

Are you aware FT is more or less a US-based (or US-dominated) site? Having said that, Texas hasn't got it's own forum on FT (attempt was made back in July, 2008 though), with a population of 20 millions+. Not to mention population doesn't justify nor demonstrate FTers' demand. You may want to familiarize yourself how/what forum requests are considered by TBers.

Please take a closer look of the current subforums in Asia Forum. I still don't see Korea at the same place/level as far as popularity is concerned on FT.

lo2e

I was merely commenting on the fact that the tone of the post by patriots68 seemed to suggest that there wasn't a place to post his/her query on places to see, when in fact there currently is, as imperfect as it is. If I misunderstood, then my apologies, but that's how I was responding.

Your comment about the populations of Orlando and South Korea has nothing to do with how popular they are as travel destinations or how much information is given or asked for on FT.

mcg1000

And it will stay that way if there's not more flexibility on forums about far-flung places.

lin821

Based on the population of FTers & "dominating" Americans, It would make perfect sense to see every state in the United States to have its own forum on FT, wouldn't it? The FT reality is, as you know it, under Destination>> United States, there are only about a dozen (sub)fora for the States, that isn't set up by state sovereignty nor population. FTer's demands rule.

What are "far-flung places", anyway? Do you have any stats or hard evidence to illustrate Korea earning its ranking as a "far-flung place" among FTers or on FT? Even though I am not certain if FT is to cover or offer (forum) flexibility on "far-flung places", good arguments are better supported by data/evidence/reasoning.

Per FTers' traffic, if other "less popular" countries, say Malaysia or Vietnam, can be discussed in Asia Forum, I don't see why Asia Forum can't do justice to Korea tourism on FT.

Yes, there are indeed FTers visiting Korea. However, with the demographics of FTers that I found in 2009, and FT traffic/threads about sightseeing in Korea, I think it will be very hard to justify or demonstrate the need to establish a Korean subforum. Not then, not now.

skchin

Korea related posts in Asian Forum has been averaging 18 new threads per month for last 6 months, not counting the replies. 18 new threads per month beats out at least 50% of all other threads on FT.

Singapore has a stand-alone Asia Sub Forum with lower average at 8 new threads per month. Can Korea have a Asia Sub Forum?

China, Hong Kong and Japan average 30+ new threads per month. At 18, Korea does seem under qualified against these threads. I think sub stand alone should give better spot light to Korea to command more traffic and increase the average closer to 20-30 per month.

mcg1000

Quote: "Asian: There are more Asian visitors here than average."
http://www.quantcast.com/flyertalk.c...s#demographics

lin821

(Emphasis mine)

No surprise there's Asia Forum on FT.

Meanwhile, Asian visitors are not the same as Korean visitors.

While Asian constitute 9% of FT population and 0.22% unique cookies from Korea (in May 2010: 1.37% from India; 1.17% from Singapore; 0.72% from Japan; 0.70 % from HK; 0.44% from China; 0.40% from Philippines; 0.47% from Malaysia & Thailand, respectively), how many of those Asian visitors are Korean?

How many FTers are about Korea? You got to show the (unmet) FT demand for Korea.

skchin

FT caters primarily to English speaking North American based audience. I'm sure other countries have their own FT equivelant. Why does inbound traffic from other countries matter?

Efrem

As previously posted, there were 18 Korea-focused threads with posts since June 1 (over three months earlier) in the Asia forum when I checked two days ago.

Updating the cutoff to June 3 since two days have passed since then, there are 59 qualifying threads in the Singapore forum, 170 in the China forum, 92 in the Hong Kong forum, and 179 in the Japan forum. (I may be off by a few if I mis-corrected for stickies when I multiplied threads per page by page count, but not enough to affect the conclusions.)

(I don't think counting new threads is a criterion, since different forums have different attitudes as regards starting a new thread on a topic versus continuing an existing one on a related topic. The Singapore forum, for example, tends to have fewer new threads than one might otherwise expect for this reason. That's why I counted threads that have any new posts.)

Bottom line: I'm not against a Korea forum, but I don't think the FT record thus far makes a strong case for it.