트레저헌터스 in 곡성 — 기차마을 14미션 보물찾기 체험법과 지역소비 3가지 시나리오Treasure Hunters in Gokseong — What 30–60 Extra Minutes Can Mean for Local Spending

The hunt takes 30–60 minutes, adding puzzles and hands-on play to a walk around the train village. A meal, snack or souvenir stop afterwards could also benefit local businesses. Three scenarios show how the scale of local spending changes with visitor numbers and spending per person.

Check FUNCTION Log’s visitor guide for booth hours and participation details before setting out. The spending analysis below uses assumed visitor numbers and budgets; it is an illustration, not recorded sales or an official forecast.

What is Treasure Hunters in Gokseong?

It is an exploration game that uses the train village as its map. You open it on the web, choose a nickname and start; walking to the pieces (missions) marked on the map unlocks them, tied to your location and the story.

There are 12 regular exploration missions, playable in any order. Completing all 12 opens mission 13 (the story finale) and mission 14 (an agent QR step), for 14 missions in total. Of the 12, five are quizzes and seven are mini-games, such as Light Sequence, Train Village Tetris, Railway Maze, Luggage Weight and Star Tap.

Characters include Chichippuppu, Tanjang-i and Ppuu. Progress saves automatically, and a nickname plus recovery number lets you continue on another device. FUNCTION Log notes the program is based on materials from Unique Good Company and Realworld.

What to bring and how to plan the festival day

Anyone can take part. Bring a charged smartphone and comfortable shoes, allow location access, and keep your nickname and recovery number. Because the game follows your location, charge your phone before you set out, and write the recovery number down in case you switch devices.

The experience takes about 30–60 minutes. With the booth open 11:00–19:00, you can look around the festival first and play afterwards, or play first and move on to a meal or rest. Leave separate time for walking and queues. Note that the festival starts October 8 (Thu), but the booth opens October 9 (Fri).

Experience time is not automatically extra time or spending, though: it can replace another activity. That is also why Treasure Hunters participants are not added on top of festival visitors in the spending model below.

How longer dwell changes the spending scenario

A nearby meal or rest stop after the hunt can connect a family’s day out with local business sales. What matters is what visitors do and spend in Gokseong. The scenarios cover spending by visitors across the festival period, rather than measuring the effect of Treasure Hunters alone.

Gokseong Simcheong Festival 2026: dates and admission

According to Gokseong County and Yonhap, the 26th Gokseong Simcheong Children’s Festival runs October 8–11 at Seomjingang Train Village.

VISITKOREA lists individual admission at KRW 5,000 and child/senior admission at KRW 4,500.

Primary-school children and younger enter free during the festival; the portal also lists other exemptions and group rates. Source: 대한민국 구석구석

Multiplying everyone by the individual ticket price can overstate admission receipts. We therefore assume a paid-entry share and an average price actually paid. Visitors with free admission remain in the local-spending model because they may still eat or shop.

Past attendance is context; this year’s numbers are assumptions

Yonhap relayed Gokseong County’s announcement of roughly 36,000 visits over the four-day 2024 festival. Source: 연합뉴스 · 2024년 10월 28일

That count does not establish a growth rate for this year. It also does not tell us how repeat visits were counted or how much people spent. It is a reference for scale, not a calibrated forecast.

Scenario assumptions: low, base and high cases use 25,000, 33,000 and 40,000 unique visitors over the entire festival period. These are illustrative totals, not probability-weighted forecasts or capacity estimates. Treasure Hunters participants are not added separately because they may be the same people.

Spending per visitor in the assumption table includes people who buy nothing. Accommodation is modeled separately using the share staying locally, people per room and nights. All amounts are in Korean won.

Average paid prices of KRW 4,500, 4,700 and 5,000 are modeling assumptions. In particular, KRW 4,700 is not a published ticket category. Paid shares of 40%, 45% and 50%, and overnight shares of 4%, 8% and 12%, are also unmeasured assumptions.

Calculate admission receipts and local spending separately

Scenario formulas: admission receipts equal visitors × paid share × average paid price. Local spending equals visitors × food, shopping and local transport spending, plus accommodation. Admission fees, travel to and from other regions, and separate paid experiences are excluded from that local-spending total.

Scenario results: admission receipts are KRW 45 million, 69.795 million and 100 million in the low, base and high cases. Local spending excluding admission is approximately KRW 526.7 million, 1,012 million and 1,672 million.

In the base scenario, food and drink account for KRW 660 million, shopping for KRW 165 million and local transport for KRW 99 million. Lodging is 33,000 × 8% ÷ 3 people per room × 1 night × KRW 100,000 = KRW 88 million, or 880 room-nights. Available rooms and actual bookings have not been verified.

The base-case KRW 1.012 billion is modeled direct spending paid locally. It is neither merchant profit nor an incremental impact after subtracting spending that would have happened anyway. Imported supplies, platform fees and extra staffing change the income retained locally. No economic multiplier is applied.

Why the same visitor count can produce different merchant sales

In a sensitivity scenario with attendance fixed at the base case, increasing average food spending from KRW 20,000 to KRW 25,000 adds 33,000 × KRW 5,000 = KRW 165 million. Spending can change even without more visitors.

1. 1
   Fixed attendance

   Assume 33,000 visitors

2. 2
   Higher mean spend

   Assume KRW 20,000 → 25,000 per visitor

3. 3
   Multiply

   33,000 × KRW 5,000

4. 4
   Added spending

   Illustrative KRW 165 million

Economic interpretation: restaurants benefit when families can reach them and finish a meal without excessive waiting. If a slow queue pushes a meal to another town, a longer visit need not translate into a local restaurant sale.

Shops can examine whether portable products and clear prices help conversion. A longer day does not automatically create an overnight stay: families need an available room and a reason to stay. Accommodation paid for outside Gokseong is excluded from this model.

For transport businesses, the relevant spending is paid local travel. More private cars do not imply proportional taxi revenue. Congestion that causes families to skip food or shopping also matters when interpreting attendance and sales.

What should be measured after the event?

To test the analysis, first establish how attendance is counted, the paid/free split and overlap with experience participants. Then compare merchant sales, local lodging and transport use with a suitable normal-period baseline to estimate incremental effects.

My reading is that experience tourism such as Treasure Hunters helps local commerce when the next choice is easy: finding food, resting, shopping or staying overnight. That makes spending more plausible; actual results still require post-event evidence.

Read the numbers with sources and assumptions separated.

Sources

• FUNCTION Log — 트레저헌터스 in 곡성
• 곡성군 문화관광 — 제26회 행사 안내
• 연합뉴스 — 2026년 일정·어린이 무료입장 (2026-09-03)
• 대한민국 구석구석 — 축제 요금 (2026-09-30 갱신)
• 연합뉴스·다음 — 2024년 나흘간 3만6천여 명 (2024-10-28)