Korean Cultural Contents and Factors Influencing French People’s Intention to Visit Korea and Intention to Purchase Korean Products

Purpose - The purpose of this research was to assess how French people’s Korean cultural content, Korean new media consumption, distance proximity, cultural familiarity, and the country’s image affect the intention to visit Korea and the intention to purchase products from Korea. Design/Methodology/Approach - Ten hypotheses were developed. To verify the study hypothesis, a questionnaire surveyed French people with some interest and affection to the Korean culture through social media which are Facebook, Kakaotalk, and Hellotalk from August to September 2022. The statistical analysis of the data collected with the questionnaire was done by the SPSS 24.0 software. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Regression Analysis were performed to verify the questionnaire’s reliability and to confirm the hypotheses. Findings - Korean cultural content, cultural familiarity, and the country’s image have a positive influence on the intention to visit Korea. Whereas the result for the variables, K-new media, and the distance show no significant influence on the intention to visit Korea. Korean cultural content, cultural familiarity, the country’s image, and distance have a positive influence on the intention to purchase a product. Whereas the result for the variable K-new media shows no significant influence on the intention to buy a product from Korea. Research Implications - As cultural familiarity seems to be variable with the most influence on intention to visit and purchase intention, cultural familiarity should be the main focus for the tourism industry and any international trade institutions. Korean language learning is also a factor boosting cultural familiarity by creating more language institutions overseas, especially in France where Korean language presence is growing every year.