Hide & Seek Guest House (Interview) by Jiyeon LEE
1. Why did you decide to make a Guesthouse?
- I like traveling with my family. I’ve traveled lots of countries, but dormitory was kind of hard to stay for us, family. When it comes to Korea, they have only hotel and pension and they are pretty expensive.
- I wanted to build accommodations where a family can stay, cook, and eat together. At the same time, I also want to build accommodation where I can introduce to foreigners who are traveling Korea.
2. Why did you choose Jongno?
- By chance
3. Who gave direction in Interior Design?
- All of them was from me, I even made a curtain by myself.
4. How people get an information of Hide&Seek guest house?
- Via the ‘lonely planet’, the travel magazine.
5. Which country’s people come here often?
- Usually, people whose language is English.
6. Why do you think there are plenty of illegal accommodation in South Korea?
- Law of accommodation is really tricky, there’s a fair amount of red tape. According to guesthouse law, it’s prohibited Koreans from staying Guest house. However, it’s almost impossible to run guesthouse business without accepting Koreans.
- There is a limitation of an area(Room) when building a new guest house.
- Plus, if I want to register my home as a guesthouse, like hide&seek and other Airbnb, it’s not a mandatory but recommended to have a family member who can speak English. So I had to go toward office (Jongno-gu office) to get an English speaking test.
- These are why there’s lots of illegal accommodation including air BNB in Korea.
7. Did or Do you have any hard time when running the guest house?
- This year, profits have dropped off sharply, one-fifth of foreigners come to the guest house compared to last year. I think this is might because of the political situation. (North Korea issues)
- Also in 2015, there was disease MERS. In those seasons, there was totally no one, even Korean. + when there was a demonstration for the impeachment of previous Korea president, Jongno was always crowded, messed, noisy. we had few customers at that time either.
- In these circumstances, it is really hard to promote our guest house by myself. there was nothing I can do because I cannot solve those problems.
- Most of Korean don’t know exactly what the guest house is.
8. Do you have any inquiry to government or KTO (Korean Tourism Organization)?
- In Korea, guest house industry is not developed enough. So I understand there are some strange laws for guest house. Korean guesthouse law is in a transition period so I can understand the problem of illegal accommodations. But we have to improve related laws gradually.
- Therefore, I strongly claim that Korea government have to regulate illegal Airbnb in Korea.
- It’s really hard to promote guest house on my own. I hope KTO help us to promote guest house to not only nationally but also externally.
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Video: Ece YILDIRIM
