This year's Korea International Boat Show ended May 22 with the greatest success since its beginning with 40,000 visitors and 210 million USD worth of consultation.

It began in May 19 at KINTEX and Gimpo Aramarina for four days with the exhibition of 404 companies from 28 countries totaling 1,56 booths. With its expertise in attracting real buyers and target marketing of eight years, a 26% increase in consultation was made during May 19-20, proving marine leisure industries as one of the major export industries in Korea.

Daedong Marine Tech sold 3 million USD worth of its products to the Vietnam Navy, and signed export contract with many countries including Qatar, Dubai, and Sri Lanka. The boat manufacturer DTEC had 600 thousand USD worth of consultation on its fishing boat. Boat Korea sold all of its rubber boats on the first day of the show.

Hyundai Boats, an exhibitor of KIBS for seven consecutive years, said, "For the first time in the show, we sold yacht membership, and received great attention, which made us feel how time has changed and the marine leisure industry has become more open to the public."

In this year's show, 40,600 visitors visited, a 14% increase from last year's visitors of 35,000, also proving the popularity of the marine leisure industries.

The events have become more diverse with open conference, Gimpo Aramarina water exhibition, and tryouts. The professional conference introduced the marine and leisure culture of countries with longer history of enjoying marine leisure. The open conference which was held on the open stage was filled with people who took interest.

This year, the human resource training project for marine leisure industry was also held. For safety and to fill the human resource gap, this project will start accepting application in June and start training in July at Gyeonggi Technopark. Many jobseekers visited the booth and showed interest.

Oh Byung-gwon, the head of economy department in Gyeonggi Province, said, "As we see records breaking every year, we are so grateful that more and more people are taking interest in marine leisure industry. KIBS will be contributing more to create more jobs and improve the industry."