1920~30년대 인천의 ‘관광도시’ 이미지 형성 – ‘인천 안내서’를 중심으로-

Abstract

Incheon was continuously growing as a port since its opening. Sino-Japanese war and Russo-Japanese war caused that numerous Japanese came into Incheon area, which leaded Incheon’s economical prosperity. Incheon was a small port at first, old facilities couldn’t maneuver the flow of new comers from Japan and other regions from Korea. New towns were built mostly around foreign settlements and modern facilities such as observatory, quarantine were built in Incheon. The population didn’t grow as fast as expected, so modern hygienic systems such as waterworks, drainage, hospitals with western medicine were one of the important parts of developing Incheon. The modern facilities showed Incheon’s modernity which leaded people easily to come to see them from all around Korea and even Japan. Moreover, developing Wolmido in early 1920s called lots of visitors to come to enjoy pool, spa, hotel and landscape of Wolmido. In the process of building modern facilities and amusing places, Incheon makes its own image connected to modernity and sightseeing which helps its economical profit. Nevertheless, the problem which the grain exchange might move to Kyungseong was a heavy blow of Incheon’s economy in mid 1920s. The influential people in Incheon’s administrative, economy, education and other fields wrote articles pointing out the questions of the moment and giving new plans for solving them. They gave ideas for respective problems including developing Wolmido as a villa for Kyungseong residents. But it seems that the most important issue was to make prefecture’s schemes to point out which industry they should focus on. It’s regarded that they focused on commerce, imports and exports, tourism as Inchoen’s possibility to go forward. To develop Incheon as a sightseeing city became one of main projects of Incheon prefecture in 1930s’. The stream that building early modern city was connected to sightseeing and modern tourism made the image of Inchoen strongly influenced by tourism. In this process, the image of Incheon as a sightseeing city represented Incheon’s local identity in the relationship with Kyungseong under the colonial Korea.