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If you want information about the land down under "where women glow and men
plunder," the Australian Tourism office in the Youngpoong bookstore building
in Jong-no says it can help make your dream trip a reality.
"Now more and more Koreans speak English so they don't have to rely on
travel agents," said Lisa Kong, public relations manager for Tourism
Australia. "So many people are visiting our office for information. We
encourage them to visit
Australia by themselves, which we will give them
abundant information of everything they need to know for their stay.
"Recently we made travel guide books for
Sydney and
Melbourne. Since I
joined here I found that there are not many useful travel books to Australia
so I made sure that our office started to make more books about other cities
like Brisbane, Gold Coast and
Perth but for now we only have Sydney and
Melbourne," she said.
 The
books cover restaurants, accommodations, day trips, what to do, where to go.
Plus, Tourism Australia also has a Korean webpage - www.australia.com -
where visitors can find whatever information they need. A visa is required
for Australia but getting one is fairly hassle-free. Generally travel agents
and airlines can take care of the visa, with no cost if they do it. If you
want to do it on your own, apply for a visa online at the Australian
embassy's webpage - www.australia.or.kr - for a fee.
"If someone has difficulties with visas we can help them but it's not our
main job. If you visit our office we will provide the information and
contact numbers on how to do it yourself. We are more of an information
service," said Kong.
She suggests that anyone making a first trip to Australia should visit
the tourism office "so that we can give you travel guides and other
information, or if you call, we can send the books by mail."
"Many Koreans when they go to Australia visit the areas closest like
Sydney and Melbourne but if you've been to Australia before, I recommend a
visit to the western side of the country. It's quite different from the
east," Kong said.
The west is mostly desert, with Perth a modern city oasis on the Indian
Ocean. There are also the wineries at neaby Margaret River which have art
exhibitions and also concerts during the summer season.
Then, there's Tasmania, a three-hour flight from Sydney off the southeast
coast of Australia - it "has the most clean pure environment," Kong noted.
Tourism Australia also runs MICE tours. Meetings, Incentives,
Conventions, and Exhibitions tourism has gained much popularity in recent
years, with Tourism Australia making the arrangements for any company or
group wanting a MICE program.
"We can help them plan their itinerary, depending on whether they want to
play golf or go to the beaches. There are hundreds of golf courses and it's
much cheaper to play than in Korea. A lot of doctors go to Australia to play
golf for that reason," Kong said.
Many carriers fly to Australia from Seoul. For the patriotic, Korean Air
has direct flights every day to Sydney and flies three times a week to
Brisbane. There are no direct flights to Melbourne but it is about 11 hours
from Seoul with one stopover.
"The good thing about Australia is no jet-lag. Sydney and Melbourne are
only one hour ahead of Korea. It can take the same amount of time to fly to
Canada or the United States but they have a larger time difference. So it's
better to travel to Australia because there's no jet-lag," she said.
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