Kim Yu-na, who won the country's first Olympic figure skating gold in Vancouver last week with a near-perfect record-setting performance, will appear in a documentary to promote Seoul around the world.

Seoul Metropolitan Government said yesterday that the 60-minute documentary, titled "Seoul Spirit," will be aired by the Discovery Channel in about 20 Southeast Asian countries on March 19.

Using Seoul as a backdrop, the documentary will show how the 19-year-old Kim grew up to reach the top of figure skating. It will also showcase a variety of tourist attractions in Seoul, including the Han River and Gwanghwamun Square.
The documentary, which the city spent a year planning and producing, will also highlight "woman power" in Korea, featuring interviews with Korea's first astronaut Yi So-yeon and popular girl group 2NE1.

"Seoul Spirit" is the third installment of the documentary series, called "Hip Korea-Seoul," which Seoul City and Discovery Channel jointly planned and organized to promote the Korean capital.

The first two installments, featuring Korean stars Rain and Lee Byung-hyun, were aired last year in 20 Asian countries, including Japan.

The city seeks to air Kim's documentary in China and countries in Europe and America as well to promote the attractive aspects of Seoul, which was designated in 2007 as the 2010 World Design Capital by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design.

"We anticipate that the documentary will grab the attention of people around the world as Kim won gold at the Vancouver Olympics. We will actively seek to promote the good image of Seoul around the world by capitalizing on it," said Yoon Young-seok, chief of the city's global marketing division.

Spurring publicity efforts, the city dramatically ramped up its annual marketing budget to 40.1 billion won ($35.05 million) in 2008, a substantial leap from 5.3 billion won in the previous year. Last year, the budget was at 34.1 billion won and has been set at 34.1 billion won for this year.

Source: The Korea Herald