Reframing to Make a New Meaning
I am waiting for my flight to Seoul after completing everything on my Jeju Island schedule. Although it’s a shame that I was unable to enjoy it properly, due to my busy schedule, Jeju Island is always a place of boundless beauty. Not only that, but the clear air and the nature of Jeju Island that has been well-preserved on all four sides by the sea are gifts in themselves.
There is another reason to love and have an attachment for Jeju Island. It is because last year, I headed the International Jeju Medical Tourism Marketing for the Jeju Tourism Organization. I was well-aware of the brand value of Chung-Jung Jeju, so when I first received the proposal, I anticipated that I would be able to see good results, so I thought it was a great opportunity.
However, a few weeks into the project, I found that marketing for Jeju Medical Tourism was not easy at all. There are many things to say about Jeju Island: beautiful nature, tourist attractions, well-being, leisure sports, and food. However, it was difficult to come up with an answer when I asked myself the reason for going all the way to Jeju Island for medical tourism. In fact, the overseas marketing of Jeju Medical Tourism has never been successful. Truthfully, in the Korean mainland, Seoul and Busan are better known for their medical tourism and have better infrastructures. Therefore, there is no reason to get on a plane and go all the way to Jeju Island for medical tourism.
“The brand does not have to advertise anymore.”
Once I changed the way I thought, I was able to see a way. Although the medical tourism in Jeju was not comparable to other big cities, it still had an advantage to give it a decisive edge. It is the brand of Jeju itself. UNESCO designated the tourist destination of Jeju Island as one of the new Seven Wonders of Nature, and it is a place of beautiful natural environment, recreation, and a place where you can experience well-being. Of course, there is no particular advantage for medical tourism in Jeju, but if you change the way you think about it, because it is in Jeju, it is a good place for medical tourism.
Therefore, if in the past you were offering recreational treatments, think of it on the flip side for inducing a trip to Jeju: propose treatment while in recreation. In the past, we released images and information related to the hospitals and infrastructures in medical tourism, which was difficult to attract tourists with. However, as we moved into new marketing, we used many images of famous tourist attractions, the natural environment, and must-visit restaurants as possible. For example, start with filling the landing page with photographs of food from famous restaurants or the beautiful natural environment in the background near the resort, then tourists themselves will find interest in it. While it may be a totally different area of medical tourism, with Jeju as the common ground, we portrayed medical tourism as a necessity for people who were interested in sightseeing or recreation in Jeju and over the last six months, traffic has increased several hundred times over. I looked at the same thing from a different perspective, I was able to expose medical tourism, something that can be difficult to draw interest in, as something that could be enjoyed together in a Jeju resort, and produce different results with the same marketing. Now, more and more people are starting to look into Jeju Medical Tourism.
Like this, instead of trying to solve a problem with the same perspective as others, you need to have a strategy to be able to change your frame and look at a difficult problem from another angle. In psychology, this is referred to as reframing, which is a way to change the way you think or feel. If you look at something from a frame that is different from the one it is recognized in, it may lead you to totally different results.
Of course, changing your current frames does have its dangers. However, only through breaking through these frames can you see innovation and change. Ultimately, it is because change does not happen automatically, but is something you must create.