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Article

Linking Walkable Urbanism and Hiking Tourism in a Mountainous Metropolitan City

by
Lankyung Kim
1 and
Chul Jeong
2,*
1
Lab of Tourism Information Management, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
2
Department of Tourism, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Land 2025, 14(9), 1857; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14091857
Submission received: 14 August 2025 / Revised: 5 September 2025 / Accepted: 10 September 2025 / Published: 11 September 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Urban and Rural Planning for Tourism: Designing a Better Future for Residents)
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Abstract

Mountains in metropolitan cities serve as fundamental features that shape urban landscapes. When incorporated into leisure contexts, mountain resources enhance community well-being and contribute to tourism. However, existing studies rarely address urban mountain tourism within the broader context of political implementation or its role in sustainable urban development. This study explores Seoul, a mountainous city that is experiencing a growing interest in hiking tourism among foreign visitors. Two approaches were used in this study. First, institutional narratives at the national and municipal levels were analyzed to understand how mountain leisure was promoted within sustainable urban agendas around the new millennium. Official documents reveal that the city has been developing pedestrian-centered urban regeneration and promoting welfare provision through urban greening strategies. Second, 8862 hiking reviews posted by international tourists on AllTrail were analyzed to identify the experiential attributes. The findings confirm that accessibility and aesthetics are the dominant attractions for hiking tourism in Seoul. Accessibility stems from pedestrian-centered development, whereas aesthetics reflect strategies that promote nature-based leisure for urban residents. This study suggests that hiking tourism in the metropolitan context has practical implications for integrating mountain resources into sustainable city planning.

1. Introduction

Mountains are large natural landforms that function as natural landmarks and shape both ecological and cultural landscapes [1]. In urban contexts, mountains serve as fundamental elements framing residents’ lifestyles, particularly when integrated into leisure practices [2]. Seoul, South Korea, is a mountainous metropolitan capital encompassing 107 named mountains, ranging from the 125 ft Naksan Mountain to the 2744 ft Bukhansan Mountain, the only national park within city limits. Urban forest recreation in South Korea has been implemented and managed through legal legislation and policy frameworks since the 1980s [3]. At the municipal level, the promotion of nature-based recreation, particularly hiking, has surged since the introduction of the Seoul Trail in 2014, which encircles the foothills of eight mountains [4]. It has recently been divided into 21 sectors with a strong emphasis on accessibility from nearby metro stations and efficient recreation time management [5]. Hiking in the capital now attracts inbound tourists, and K-Hiking (Korean-style hiking) is regarded as part of the diversification of forest-based tourism resources [6].
This social phenomenon has been the result of a complex interplay of institutional interventions over several decades, which can be analyzed through the lens of institutional narrative perspectives [7,8]. In South Korea, collaborative efforts at both the state and municipal levels concerning urban forest recreation have contributed to the rise of hiking tourism [9,10,11]. These efforts also reflect the growing recognition of the psychological and physical health benefits of nature-based leisure, especially in the post-pandemic era [12]. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has intensified its well-being promotion strategies through the concept of walkable urbanism, launching urban regeneration projects that prioritize pedestrian-friendly environments and foster connections with nature [13,14,15]. The city’s 2030 Master Plan delineates a vision for a more sustainable and livable Seoul by creating an integrated network of green spaces and ensuring universal accessibility [16].
Socio-ecological ecosystems, exemplified by green infrastructure for recreational purposes and their corresponding inclusive transportation networks [17], function effectively when integrated with institutional implementation flows. In South Korea, the management of urban parks and green areas is overseen by governmental entities responsible for land use, transportation, and infrastructure [18]. Additionally, the Forest Welfare Act [19] and municipal-level initiatives, such as the collaborative involvement of the Seoul Tourism Organization [6], have been instrumental in creating an accessible hiking environment, thereby reducing both physical and psychological barriers to mountain-based activities. While hiking is distinct from mountain climbing or trekking, incorporating mountain landscapes into urban leisure strategies aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals, including promoting biodiversity conservation, raising awareness of mountain ecosystems, and preserving cultural heritage sites [20].
Existing studies on mountainous metropolitan cities have seldom addressed urban mountain tourism within the broader framework of political implementation [1,2,21,22]. This study explored how institutional interventions may link urban walkability with tourism resource development in a metropolitan context. Two primary data sources were employed: official documentation, including legislation and public reports, and user-generated content from international tourists’ hiking reviews in Seoul. Institutional narratives derived from official sources trace the chronological development of policy interventions in urban greenspace recreation and analyze how these policies have shaped walkable urbanism and forest recreation [7]. Meanwhile, corpus analysis using text mining techniques identified the core themes of K-Hiking experiences among international tourists [23], addressing which destination attributes contributed to the rise of hiking tourism in Seoul.
The findings of this study highlight the interconnections between walkable urbanism and hiking tourism in a mountainous city, focusing on the role of institutional interventions in the context of compressed urban development. Theoretically, this study expands the fragmented understanding of walkable urbanism and forest recreation by offering a holistic perspective of mountain tourism. Practically, it provides historical insights into the political agendas that have shaped nature-based recreation in a country that has experienced elements of both the Global South and the Global North. Finally, the study offers suggestions for future legislative and managerial directions to support a sustainable hiking tourism agenda in the region.

2. Literature Review

In this section, the social–ecological system provides a fundamental framework for articulating how natural landforms influence cultural landscapes through institutional strategies and their consequences within a social feedback loop [24]. Institutionalism is examined to understand how political agendas and actor agents shape urban lifestyles, particularly within the context of a mountainous city [7,8]. Finally, the link between walkable urbanism and urban mountain tourism is supported by shared attributes identified in previous research findings [25,26].

2.1. Institutional Narratives

Institutionalism originates from the concept that individual behavior and market mechanisms are shaped by institutional elements such as legal systems, administrative structures, and cultural norms. The sociological approach to old institutionalism in the early to mid-20th century focused on the structures and processes of organizations formed by bureaucratic systems [27]. By contrast, in the contemporary context, neo-institutionalism views institutions as the result of correlated interactions between behavioral regularities and organizations, emphasizing organizational change and the stabilization of mutual expectations among different actors [28,29].
A specific branch of neo-institutionalism, historical institutionalism, emphasizes chronological context, arguing that institutional change occurs through critical junctures or nuanced societal dynamics over time [30]. Applying this perspective, Choi [8] compared the development of forest recreation policies in three Asian countries and found that policy evolution followed similar trajectories based on patterns of economic growth and increasing welfare awareness. Although historical institutionalism is considered a theory for analyzing real-world situations, it has been criticized for being overly context dependent and fitting only particular configurations [31].
Institutional narratives, however, focus on the shared understanding of institutions through various forms of discourse, including their historical origins, values, and societal contributions, thus transcending the dichotomy between old and neo-institutionalism [32]. In this study, institutional narratives were applied to interpret the holistic context and emergence of a new political framework that promotes a pedestrian-friendly urban landscape in Seoul City, which is closely related to the city’s characteristics as a mountainous metropolitan area. The case study was conducted using data collected through a comprehensive review of political documents, government reports from the national and municipal levels, and relevant institutional narratives related to urban planning and forest recreation.

2.2. Walkable Urbanism

In the era of climate change and environmental crisis, pedestrian-friendly urban development is experiencing a renaissance, addressing the growing demand for soft mobility and active transportation [15,33,34,35]. The concept of a 15 min city has gained significant traction, particularly since the global pandemic, as it aligns with the idea of soft mobility. It proposes a self-sufficient neighborhood in which residents can access all essential needs, including work, education, commercial services, and recreation, within a 15 min radius without the need to drive [36,37]. Although this concept has been widely adopted in agenda-setting for sustainable development goals, its political implementation in real-world situations requires environment-specific applications that consider geographical characteristics and existing infrastructure, such as urban forests and highways [38], as well as residents’ socioeconomic conditions, such as spatial capital [39].
Although no universally applicable political scheme exists for pedestrian-focused urban development, walkable cityscapes have been promoted at the municipal level in many countries [4,12,15,26,40]. In response to environmental concerns, these political strategies aim to improve the quality of life for residents in densely populated metropolitan areas. These strategies primarily focus on enhancing public transportation systems to improve access to public service facilities [26,41,42] and promoting accessible green spaces to support psychological, physical, and social public health [43]. Particularly, walkable urban regeneration, such as the development of circular trails or linear parks within cities, has been achieved through tailored political implementation that considers the spatial context of each place [4,15].
Mountainous cityscapes serve as recreational resources that facilitate urban residents’ contact with nature while incorporating the sustainable leisure practices of walkable urbanism. Owing to their geographical characteristics, land-use policies often encourage the development of peripheral mountain areas as connected paths for both utilitarian and recreational purposes, such as the Seoul Trail [4]. Instances also exist of walkable urbanism in mountainous cities supported by public transportation systems that connect to the starting points of mountain paths, as evidenced in Chongqing, China [44]. This contrasts with examples in some European cities, where the lack of public transportation infrastructure hinders similar approaches. Romeyer et al. [45] identified car ownership as a decisive factor in participation in urban forest recreation and advocated for enhanced accessibility.

2.3. Hiking Tourism

Mountain urbanology addresses the mountain urban landscape from a bifurcated perspective: formal aesthetics, which considers physical design strategies such as a city’s skyline formed by mountains and building contours, and the broader cultural landscape, which encompasses the social, economic, and political aspects of mountain cities where residents develop embodied lifestyles under such distinct conditions [1]. In addition to these materialistic approaches to urban natural resources, mountain environments provide a continuous ecological network that extends into a composite walking system within a city [46]. This urban walking system, integrated with the city’s geographical characteristics, is employed in political agenda-setting for the recreational purposes of urban residents. Mountains in cities are often referred to as urban forests [47,48], as mountains themselves offer a broad spectrum of recreational alternatives—from casual wandering to mountaineering. In metropolitan urban contexts, mountain recreational functions are closely associated with walking trails and biodiversity [48]. By contrast, mountain recreation in remote areas tends to reflect the concepts of physical sports and competition [49]. This study focuses on the concept of hiking tourism as a form of mountain recreation in metropolitan areas.
Hiking is a type of mountain tourism that refers to recreational walking on trails completed within a single day, requiring no specialized training or equipment, whereas mountain tourism is an umbrella term encompassing various activities in mountainous regions [50,51]. Nepal and Chipeniuk [26] proposed a conceptual framework for recreation and tourism development in mountainous regions, focusing on six mountain resource characteristics: diversity, marginality, difficulty of access, fragility, niche, and aesthetics. Their proposed framework prioritized the natural elements of mountain resources over the inclusion of their governing actors. South Korea was the first country to integrate forest recreation into the domain of welfare services, supported by a comprehensive system of legislation and national-level promotion [52,53]. Consequently, hiking has become the most popular leisure activity, signaling a paradigm shift toward nature-based leisure [8]. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, has several distinct geographical characteristics. Twenty-five percent of its administrative districts are composed of mountains adjacent to the urban core, providing natural trails that serve as sustainable leisure resources and contribute to residents’ sense of place and aesthetic appreciation [47].
In this regard, pedestrian-friendly urban development and urban hiking tourism share the inclusive characteristics of walking as a sustainable leisure practice that supports both residents’ well-being and environmental engagement [4,12,15]. This study explores the relationship between walkable urbanism and hiking tourism in a mountainous capital, and the argument is developed through institutional narratives, covering aspects such as historical trajectories, national and municipal legislation, engagement of state and non-state actors, and tourists’ real-world experiences.

3. Methodology

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has been promoting a pedestrian-friendly city for the past decades [54], with strategies aligned with national and municipal forest recreation schemes, including the creation of forest paths by the state-level forest governance sector [55] and hiking support centers at the municipal level of the tourism sector [6]. Recently, the city has witnessed growing interest among inbound tourists in experiencing Korean-style hiking during their visit to Seoul [6]. Accordingly, this study examined the connection between pedestrian-friendly urban development and hiking tourism in Seoul, a mountainous metropolitan city. The following subsections outline the research procedures and data sources used to conduct a chronological exploration of institutional interventions and resulting social changes.

3.1. Research Protocol

According to Yin [56], multiple data sources contribute to the reliability of research by triangulating and maintaining a chain of evidence. A clear chain of evidence refers to the connection between the data collected and the conclusions drawn by tracing the origins and analyzing the data. This involved documenting the data sources, methods used for data collection, and steps taken during the analysis. While the chain of evidence helps ensure the logical flow and transparency of the research, a research protocol and a detailed written plan are required to guide the entire case study. This lays out the specific steps for achieving that flow. This study followed a research protocol, which included specific details about the research questions, the methods for data collection, data analysis, and reporting findings.

3.2. Data Sources and Analysis

3.2.1. Official Documents and Chronological Narrative

The study employed a broad scope of official documents, mainly government reports, including legislative statutes and ordinances, to identify political interventions and institutional research related to pedestrian-friendly urban development and the promotion of urban forest recreation. The documents were collected using snowball sampling and manual web tracing methods. Starting from known municipal and national sources (e.g., Seoul Metropolitan Government, Korea Forest Service), we followed cross-references and linked documents to examine related policies and reports. The inclusion of data was based on thematic relevance (e.g., walking, hiking, forest recreation), document availability, and institutional credibility. Unlike systematic literature reviews, which rely on indexed academic articles, this approach reflects the realistic structure of public documentation ecosystems, in which content is often dispersed across multiple agencies and is not centralized [57]. Data collection continued until the researchers reached a consensus that sufficient information had been gathered to identify recurring themes and notable shifts in trends within the case. A full list of included sources is presented in Table 1.
The collected data were analyzed using a chronological method. A chronological narrative is a method used to observe a sequence of events to determine when something occurs and how that timing influences other factors [7]. This approach helps to uncover the relationship between potential causes and consequences among events and to understand the context in which these events occurred. The findings from the chronological analysis can contribute to historical institutionalism through an established timeline that serves as a fundamental asset for interpreting institutional narratives [68].

3.2.2. User-Generated Content and Corpus Analysis

Corpus analysis uses natural language processing techniques to analyze large collections of text data (corpora) and extract meaningful insights from the language [23]. This study employed the collocation method to examine how often specific word pairs co-occur more frequently than would be expected by chance. This approach facilitates understanding of how language works in context by identifying significant word associations and quantifying the strengths of those associations [69]. The text mining approach applied in collocation analysis is distinct from network analysis, as it recognizes statistically significant word pairs rather than observing clustered structures and conceptual communities of language in the corpus.
Although this study adopted qualitative text data generated from hiking tourists, statistical analysis was conducted using the T-score and log-likelihood ratio to reduce overreliance on raw frequencies [70]. More specifically, the T-score determined whether the co-occurrence of two words is statistically reliable rather than random by testing the stability of the collocation and controlling for individual word frequency. The log-likelihood ratio tested the difference in the joint frequency of two words from a possible case in which the words were independent. Using these statistical methods, the dispersion of word pairs was analyzed by calculating the extent to which each collocation appeared across the corpus (i.e., number of unique reviews). Methodological diversification can triangulate results and strengthen the credibility of a study [70].
User-generated review data were collected from AllTrails.com launched in December 2010, a global hiking platform on which international tourists share detailed trail reviews accompanied by an abundance of visual and textual information. For reasons of anonymity and ethical compliance, authors did not collect or disclose any specific information about the nationality of individual users. Instead, we relied on review language (English) and, where available, non-identifiable profile metadata as a proxy for international visitors. It is acknowledged that this heuristic may include expatriates and bilingual locals, which can be considered as a limitation. The user-generated data were used without any time segmentation.
A total of 8862 trail reviews of mountain routes in Seoul were used for the analysis. Statistical text data analyses were conducted using the quanteda and quanteda.textstats packages [71] in the R environment (version 4.5.1), an open-source software for statistical computing [72]. Text preprocessing was conducted using the quanteda R package [71], which involved tokenization, lowercasing, and the removal of punctuation, numbers, and English stopwords. We removed English stopwords using the default list provided in the package, while retaining domain-specific terms such as trail and hike. A full list of stopwords is available at: https://snowball.tartarus.org/algorithms/english/stop.txt (accessed on 3 August 2025).

4. Results

The synergetic influence on hiking tourism is grounded in both state- and municipal-level governance in the city, particularly through pedestrian-friendly urban development and green space-oriented welfare initiatives. State-level policy interventions targeting urban park recreation are aligned with the city’s autonomous efforts, which emphasize green city planning (Table 2).

4.1. Walkable Urbanism and Urban Forest Recreation

South Korea has been recognized for its successful forest rehabilitation efforts following the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945) and the Korean War (1950–1953). Throughout the 1950s and 1970s, the government focused on forest rehabilitation to address problems caused by deforestation, such as drought and soil erosion. The National Arbor Day was designated (5 April 1949), and the statutory organization and the first national plan on forestry were introduced during that period. By contrast, recreational aspects of forests were promoted through the designation of national parks and the development of urban green spaces in cooperation with the Second Forest Plan during the 1980s [58]. Having experienced the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and the implementation of Local Autonomy since 1993, Seoul City paid specific attention to urban parks and established its own park management plan, focusing on urban parks separately from natural ones [59,60].
Inclusive landscape governance was observed at both the state and local levels through legal implementation and operations across multiple sectors during the 2000s. The concept of forest welfare was reinforced with the establishment of new legislation and an institutional actor [65]. This development aligns with the objectives of the Fifth and Sixth National Forest Plans [63,64], which emphasize the multifaceted benefits of forestry in contributing to welfare provision, including the creation of forest-related service jobs, such as forest healing instructors or guides [58].
Prior to the establishment of forestry welfare legislation, the Ministry responsible for Land, Transportation, and Infrastructure introduced legal acts and policies focusing on the development and management of urban parks and green spaces [18]. This strategy promoted urban afforestation projects, encouraged the planting of trees and other vegetation to enhance the urban environment, and aimed to create a more integrated network of urban green spaces. It also emphasized the promotion of citizens’ environmental awareness and the establishment of biotope areas within urban settings through the development of green infrastructure [18]. Considering that 92% of the population in South Korea now reside in urban areas, the systematic management of urban green spaces under legislative oversight supports the green transition strategy [8].
The Seoul Metropolitan Government initiated various urban regeneration projects to improve residents’ contact with nature and enhance their physical well-being. These efforts included both large- and small-scale green regeneration projects, such as the removal of elevated overpasses to restore natural streams and develop adjacent green paths, the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project [14], and the adaptive reuse of overpasses for pedestrian connectivity and recreational purposes, as exemplified by the Seoullo 7017 walkway [13]. These municipal strategies have focused on promoting walkable urbanism to deliver multisectoral benefits, address environmental concerns, and support physical health through soft mobility schemes.
Seoul’s pedestrian-oriented urban reforms, implemented and operated under Seoul Transport Vision 2030 [54], contribute to improving access to natural recreational resources, including mountain trails [60]. On the contrary, it is the city’s unique mountainous geography that distinguishes Seoul’s hiking-leisure phenomenon from those of other global cities. While many global cities adopt soft mobility or active transportation systems as a strategy to reduce car dependency and environmental impacts, Seoul’s pedestrian policy has further functioned as a mobility bridge to natural recreational resources, especially its urban mountains. The unique intersection of policy and geography has enabled hiking tourism to emerge as a form of accessible leisure in the capital city.
Seoul’s transportation policy, particularly its commitment to dense, affordable, and geographically distributed metro coverage, has enabled everyday access to green space infrastructure, thus contributing to inclusive transportation. For example, Seoul Trail has been amended to Seoul Trail 2.0 by subdividing eight districts into 21 sectors, emphasizing the “trail combined with metro” model that repositions transit service as a driver of everyday access to green space recreation for all [5]. When accessibility is considered in nature-based recreation in urban settings, public transportation functions as an essential asset for leisure capability, enabling a person to reduce both the physical and psychological distance to the destination [50]. According to survey reports on national awareness of hiking and forest trail experiences [9,10], people perceive easily accessible mountains as potential destinations for hiking tourism in the foreseeable future.
In line with recent findings indicating that hiking has been the most preferred outdoor activity among Koreans over the past decade [9,10], political interventions such as the legislation of forest recreation and the promotion of walking paths around urban mountain areas have encouraged a lifestyle in which walking in nature has become an integral part of public leisure practices [6]. This shift is also evident in the tourism sector, where growing attention to natural resources reflects concerns about overall well-being and environmental awareness [12,15]. Mountain tourism exemplifies this rising demand for nature-based recreation. In Seoul, accessible urban mountains have become a popular form of hiking tourism integrated with the country’s cultural tourism resources. The following subsection explores how this trend is manifested among inbound tourists visiting Seoul.

4.2. Hiking Tourism Experiences

The results of the user-generated review analysis indicate that the significance of hiking tourism in Seoul lies in its accessibility and the quality of the hiking environment. The 10 most visited hiking routes were consolidated into a visual representation created by the authors, supported by official documentation in the form of a guidebook. Text review data were analyzed, focusing solely on text generated from users’ hiking experiences.

4.2.1. The 10 Most Preferred Hiking Routes

The 10 most preferred hiking routes were found within the city center or along metro-accessible routes near Bukhansan Mountain, the only national park within the city (Figure 1). Routes around Namsan Mountain offer various starting and ending points connected to the city’s core, including major tourist attractions such as Namsan Tower and cultural heritage sites. These routes overlap with Seonggwak-gil (fortress wall trail), restored from 2010 to 2012 as part of a pedestrian-friendly urban regeneration agenda of the municipal government, confirming the strong driving role of institutional strategies in the recent hiking tourism phenomenon.
The Seoul City Trail, which traverses routes 1 to 5 in Figure 1, is named in AllTrails; however, the actual name of the trail in Korean is Hanyangdoseong-gil or Seonggwak-gil, meaning a trail along the city’s historic fortress wall. As seen in Figure 2, the route includes key essential tourist attractions within the city center, supported by a high-density public transportation network. The hiking trails, routes 1 to 5, confirm that accessibility combined with attractions is the dominant factor in route selection for inbound tourists in the city.
Bukhansan is the highest mountain and the only national park within the city, designated as a national asset for its preservation value as natural heritage. Particularly, its natural aesthetics are considered important aspects when choosing a route, even among local-residents. The Bukhansan Main Route, which traverses routes 6 to 9 in Figure 1, highlights the combination of city views and natural beauty, further supported by public transportation accessibility provided by the UI Metro Line, which began operations in 2017. Also, the first establishment of the Seoul Hiking Tourism Center at Bukhansan in 2022 [6], providing essential visitor services such as course information, luggage storage, and equipment rental, can be associated with the recent route popularity. This visual representation should be interpreted in conjunction with the findings from the following text analysis.

4.2.2. Word Collocation Analysis

The T-score analysis confirmed that tourists were most concerned about the trail conditions and city views observed from the summits (Figure 3, Table A1). The ten key terms identified from the collected texts were: “trail,” “hike,” “views,” “top,” “way,” “peak,” “beautiful,” “Seoul,” “walk,” and “great.” The collocations of these terms were found to be significant. According to Evert [70], a T-score threshold of 2.0 was adopted to identify statistically significant collocations, following established practices in computational linguistics. In particular, scores exceeding 3.0 indicate high association strength, and tourists’ aesthetic experiences, particularly scenic city views, were found to be strong assets in Seoul’s hiking tourism. Frequent collocations such as “great views,” “views top,” “amazing views,” and “beautiful views” illustrate this. Similarly, positive word pairs related to mountain trails, such as “great trail,” “nice trail,” “great hike,” and “beautiful hike,” were commonly observed with score values above 2.0. Notably, “Baekundae Peak” emerged as a significant resource for hiking tourism, particularly in conjunction with the most popular hiking routes.
Log-likelihood ratio analysis revealed meaningful word collocations even when their frequency was low (Figure 4, Table A1). Collocations with a lambda (λ) value greater than 10.83 were considered statistically meaningful reflecting strong word associations even for low-frequency bigrams [71]. The effectiveness of this uncovers contextually relevant collocations even with limited occurrences. For example, “restroom vending,” “shopping options,” and “renting thermoses” suggest the importance of support facilities for hikers. Terms such as “prevent falls” and “cardio intensive” reflect concerns about the physical demands of hiking. Meanwhile, “heavily trafficked” and “speaking biggest” point to negative aspects of the trail, such as overcrowding and poor hiking etiquette.
During collocation extraction, some parsing artefacts, such as “goal pet,” appeared due to automatic tokenization; these were retained for transparency and cross-checked against the original sentences, which confirmed that they were segmentation errors. The artifact itself appeared meaningless, but the underlying sentence still held interpretive value once verified. For example, the original review sentence including “goal pet” was: “Awesome hike. Amazing views. Cool historical sites. Very worth it. Definitely a favorite thus far in Korea. So many trails to try. Great hiking gear shopping options, food, etc. Disappointed that dogs require scheduled appointment times to enter the trail. Appointments for dogs can only be made on the park website in advance. It seems they want to keep dogs separated for safety, which is fine, but the trail had a couple of dozen stray dogs and cats roaming around the top of the mountain. The goal of pet separation for safety seems to be grounded in something outside of reality.” This can be interpreted with the collocation of “pet separation”, revealing hikers’ unpleasant experiences with small animal companions.

4.3. Summary of Results

Institutional narratives traverse legal legislation, political implementation, organizational-level operations, and public participation, with citizens acting as both active contributors and recipients of institutional strategies. This study extends the concept of public participation to include international visitors and finds that political strategies promoting urban welfare, particularly those focused on forest recreation, are now being integrated into the tourism sector. This development exemplifies a positive feedback loop within the city’s institutional narrative.

5. Discussion

The development of institutional narratives is influenced by the complex interplay between actors and their interactions within institutional interventions [7,24]. These narratives evolve through ongoing interactions, interpretations, and strategic actions by various individuals and groups in a chronological flow. In this context, current social phenomena are shaped by feedback loops between narratives and institutions, wherein narratives influence institutional structures and norms, which, in turn, reinforce or amplify the narratives, resulting in both positive and negative consequences. Currently, Seoul City is witnessing the growing popularity of hiking tourism among international visitors [6]. This study explores this phenomenon as a link between pedestrian-friendly urban development and green space welfare interventions through institutional narratives.
By examining the lived experiences of international visitors while hiking, this study identified accessibility and aesthetics as the dominant factors influencing hiking tourism in the city. Although these have already been established as key elements of mountain tourism [30], the findings within the context of a densely populated metropolitan capital have new implications. Accessibility and aesthetics can be understood as the cumulative outcomes of political interventions in urban landscape development, traversing physical land-use planning and public welfare promotion, such as green space recreation, public transportation systems, and architectural planning for the cityscape.
According to a recent Seoul Survey [58], residents perceive the city’s most attractive asset to be its public transportation system. Since the implementation of Local Autonomy in 1993, the city has promoted the quality of life for urban residents by increasing access to nature through various urban development plans. The transition of Seoul into a green city aligns with pedestrian-centered urban promotion projects such as the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project [14], Seoul Trail [61], and Gyeongui Line Forest Park [15]. These initiatives emphasize walking as a form of soft mobility that contributes to environmental sustainability and care while offering recreational programs that enhance public well-being [12,15].
Inclusive landscape governance that utilizes urban natural resources is a common trend across many Asian countries, especially in mountainous cities [2,44]. In South Korea, forest welfare is institutionalized at the state level through legislation and operational systems [63,64,65]. Seoul City further supports its citizens by establishing a green frame through the development of urban parks [60], improving accessibility to urban nature [7], and fostering organizational collaboration among governmental entities, including the tourism sector. Urban nature is now regarded as a welfare attribute that provides a better quality of life in the city. Well-developed mountain trails can be viewed as a product of collaborative governance aimed at enhancing public welfare through the utilization of urban nature.
Seoul has been the capital of Korea for several decades. Historically known as Hanyang during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), the city inherited numerous cultural properties, including mountain fortresses and temples. Seonggwak-gil, a trail along the city’s historic fortress walls, is currently under consideration for a UNESCO World Heritage listing [73]. Notably, Seonggwak-gil was already adopted in the 2010s as a recreational mountain asset within the city’s walking-centered urban regeneration strategies. Additionally, mountain temples contribute to the cultural value of hiking tourism by offering architectural uniqueness and serving as resting points during hikes. Academic attention has also been directed toward integrating Korea’s temple culture with walking tourism [74].
Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, lacks mountains but has effectively capitalized on its unique geography and land below sea level by promoting water elements as nature-related tourism resources [75]. Similarly, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced strategic plans to diversify urban tourism resources, including the integration of mountains. The present study affirms the potential of Seoul to position itself as a nature-centered tourism destination for urban hiking. The growing interest among international tourists in hiking tourism can be extended to nearby cities and rural areas, supported by the country’s well-connected transportation infrastructure.

6. Conclusions

This study examines the relationship between walkable urbanism and hiking tourism in a mountainous metropolitan city, exemplified by Seoul, South Korea. It addresses the increasing interest in hiking tourism among international visitors to the city and explores this phenomenon through the feedback loop associated with institutional narratives. With chronological attention paid to both state- and municipal-level policy implementations and operations, this study confirms that the city has been developing pedestrian-centered urban regeneration and promoting welfare through urban greening strategies. By applying text mining analysis to hiking histories and hikers’ lived experiences, this study identified accessibility and aesthetics as the dominant attractions for K-Hiking in Seoul. Accessibility is linked to the city’s pedestrian-centered urban development, which provides universal access to natural resources, while aesthetic perceptions are associated with municipal strategies that promote nature-based leisure practices and support favorable leisure conditions for residents.
This study relied primarily on secondary data for the analysis. Future research could incorporate interviews with practitioners from institutions related to hiking tourism to explore their perspectives on the link between sustainable urban development strategies and the rising interest in hiking tourism. Additionally, hikers tend to share self-captured photographs alongside their hiking narratives; however, this study excluded visual data from the analysis. Future studies could integrate visual data with textual content to gain deeper insights into this topic. Finally, this study approached hiking tourism as a unified experience; however, different routes and mountains may yield distinct experiential values. Future research should explore mountain-specific attributes, such as Baegundae Peak on Bukhansan Mountain, which emerged as a meaningful landmark in the participants’ narratives.
Theoretically, this study suggests an institutional narrative framework to collectively understand the integration of walkable urbanism and mountain-based welfare, addressing the fragmented discourse in urban tourism and sustainability studies. Practically, this study provides a strategic understanding for policymakers and urban planners to develop inclusive and accessible urban landscapes by incorporating hiking tourism into existing green infrastructure and welfare systems. Given that international tourists highly value accessibility, scenic city views, and well-maintained trails, hiking tourism strategies should focus on transit–trail integration, visual landscape management, and supportive amenities.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, L.K. and C.J.; methodology, L.K.; validation, C.J.; formal analysis, L.K.; investigation, L.K.; writing—original draft preparation, L.K. and C.J.; writing—review and editing, C.J.; supervision, C.J. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

Data and R code will be made available by the authors on request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A

Table A1. The 30 most common collocated terms by T-score and the 30 low-frequency but significant collocations by log-likelihood ratio.
Table A1. The 30 most common collocated terms by T-score and the 30 low-frequency but significant collocations by log-likelihood ratio.
30 Most Common Collocated Terms30 Low-Frequency but Significant Collocations
T = O − E O
O: observed frequency, E: expected frequency		by lambda calculation
using quentede.stats R package (version 4.5.1)
collocationlambda (λ)z-scoreT-scorecollocationlambda (λ)z-score
great views3.08515.2225.527chose exactly12.2975.940
along way4.23417.0915.407nowhere greet
beautiful views3.01713.5864.923scheduled appointment
great hike2.45711.4554.70330 pm photographer’s11.9605.702
views top2.55611.7264.652600 m daedongsa
amazing views3.66413.0764.273bottlenecks form
views city3.42212.7324.246form trickier
views seoul2.74010.6383.982grand hyatt
great trail1.7657.7533.774heavily trafficked
view top2.82710.0763.655restroom vending
baegundae peak4.54611.7903.397sensations teens
view seoul3.0659.6263.232snake chipmunk
nice views2.1777.3483.124summit umyeonsan
stunning views4.6359.5943.085speaking biggest
nice trail1.6796.2553.075umyeonsan gwanaksan
trail head5.4986.2893.062vending machines
beautiful hike1.8516.5193.036vice versa
beautiful view2.6498.1743.029cherry blossom11.4496.736
trail closed2.6817.5632.988bug spray11.1986.157
trail bit1.9456.4412.945dozen stray
difficult hike2.3767.2402.921gaps sheer
trail well2.0076.6102.898goal pet
awesome hike3.3878.3132.836greet arrival
offs seoul city3.1528.7122.814offs leave
way back2.9037.9502.783prevent falls
incredible views4.5578.6712.757shopping options
fun hike2.8317.5212.739blue house
start trail2.1276.1382.672cardio intensive
main trail3.4577.2842.656pet separation
nice hike1.6925.3702.609renting thermoses

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Land 14 01857 g001
Figure 1. The 10 most popular hiking routes in Seoul. Note: Numbering and colors were used solely for identification. The map was created by the authors using GIS.
Figure 1. The 10 most popular hiking routes in Seoul. Note: Numbering and colors were used solely for identification. The map was created by the authors using GIS.
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Figure 2. Seoul City Trail and Bukhansan Trails described by municipal agencies. Sources: Seoul Metropolitan Government. https://seoulcitywall.seoul.go.kr/ (accessed on 5 August 2025) https://english.seoul.go.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/SEOUL-HIKING-GUIDE-BOOK.pdf (accessed on 5 August 2025).
Figure 2. Seoul City Trail and Bukhansan Trails described by municipal agencies. Sources: Seoul Metropolitan Government. https://seoulcitywall.seoul.go.kr/ (accessed on 5 August 2025) https://english.seoul.go.kr/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/SEOUL-HIKING-GUIDE-BOOK.pdf (accessed on 5 August 2025).
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Figure 3. The 50 most common collocated terms.
Figure 3. The 50 most common collocated terms.
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Figure 4. The 30 low-frequency but significant collocations.
Figure 4. The 30 low-frequency but significant collocations.
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Table 1. Official document sources from public institutions.
Table 1. Official document sources from public institutions.
InstitutionYearData
Seoul Metropolitan Government
https://www.seoul.go.kr/ (accessed from 20 June 2025 to 17 July 2025)		20242 Seoul Trail 2.0 [5]
20243 2023 Seoul Survey [58]
2022Seoul Hiking Tourism Center [6]
20193 Seoul White Paper [59]
20173 Seoullo 7017 White Paper [13]
20132 Vision 2030 for a Pedestrian-Friendly Seoul [16]
20063 Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project White Paper [14]
The Seoul Institute
http://seoul.go.kr/ (accessed from 25 June 2025 to 21 July 2025)		20233 Study on establishing a master plan to promote leisure culture in Seoul’s parks and forests [60]
20153 Transition from a vehicle-oriented city to a pedestrian-friendly city [54]
20143 Seoul Trail management and operation plan [61]
Korea Forest Service
https://www.forest.go.kr/ (accessed from 30 June 2025 to 17 July 2025)		20253 Korea Forest Service self-evaluation report [62]
20223 Survey on national awareness of mountain climbing and forest trail experience [9]
20213 Survey on public awareness of hiking and trekking [10]
20203 Survey on public awareness of forest recreation activities [11]
20181 The Sixth National Forest Plan (2018–2035) [63]
20081 The Fifth National Forest Plan (2008–2017) [64]
20051 Forestry Culture and Recreation Act [55]
Korea Forest Welfare Institute
https://www.fowi.or.kr/ (accessed on 17 July 2025)		20213 Korea Forest Welfare Institute Sustainability Report 2021 [65]
Ministry of Land, Transportation and Infrastructure
https://www.law.go.kr/ (accessed on 30 June 2025)		20051 Act on Urban Parks and Green Areas: planning of parks, forestry, agriculture, water, and infrastructure to create a more interconnected and integrated network of urban green spaces [18]
Ministry of Environment
https://me.go.kr/ (accessed on 20 July 2025)		20192 The Fifth National Comprehensive Territorial Plan (2020–2040): Visions and Strategy for Korea’s Green Transition 2040 [66]
20193 The Transformation of Urban Park and Green Space Policy for Sustainability [67]
Note: 1 Legislation and regulations, 2 policy documents, 3 reports or studies.
Table 2. Pedestrian-focused urban forest recreation policies in Seoul City.
Table 2. Pedestrian-focused urban forest recreation policies in Seoul City.
Time1960–70s1980s1990s2000s2010s2020s–Present
OverviewForest rehabilitation.Promotion of urban forest recreation at the national level.The Seoul Municipal Government established its own park management plan based on local autonomy.Implementation of inclusive landscape governance, including forest welfare promotion and revival of the green network through urban regeneration.Promotion of walkable urbanism through pedestrian-centered landscape planning, in cooperation with multiple ministries and municipal plans.The green network is further specified to support a sustainable urban lifestyle for residents.
Municipal
Level		 1988 Seoul Olympics.Namsan Renaissance Project (2009) improving accessibility to nature.Seoullo 7017 (2017), the first elevated park converted from a 1970s overpass.Seoul Trail 2.0 (2024) introducing metro + trail model
by amendment of 8 districts to 21 segments.
Establishment of Green Seoul Bureau (2005) as citizens’ Green Seoul Committee.2030 Seoul Parks Green Area Master Plan (2015) expanding green spaces.Garden City Seoul Plan (2023) aiming 5 min Garden City Seoul initiatives.
Establishment of the Han River Citizen Park, Olympic Park, and Seoul Grand Park. Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project (2003–2005), 10 km restored waterway from historical resources.Seoul Dulle-gil (Seoul Trail) (2014), eight district courses on the outskirts of Seoul, stretching a total of 157 km and encircling the city’s 11 mountains.Seoul Hiking Tourism Center (2022) operated by Seoul Tourism Organization, promoting the city’s hiking tourism content, and offers services (e.g., hiking gear rentals).
Restoration of Senggwak-gil (fortress wall trail) (2010–2012).
State LevelPark FocusedPark Act (1967), the first designation of a national park.Korea National Park Service (1987) under the Ministry of Construction.Korea National Park Service (1987) under the Ministry of Environment.Act on Urban Parks and Green Areas (2005) enacted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to promote a healthy, cultural, and comfortable urban lifestyle for citizens through urban nature.Act on the Establishment and Management of Yongsan Park (2016): conversion of former US military base into a national park.22 National Parks, including Bukhansan National Park within Seoul.
Establishment of Urban Park Act (1980) focusing on the concept of parks in cities.Last amendment to the Act on Urban Parks, Green Areas (2015).
Forestry Focused1st National Forest Plan (1973–1978) focusing on forest restoration.2nd National Forest Plan (1979–1987) promoting public interest in forests.3rd National Forest Plan (1988–1997) designating of recreational forests in urban areas.4th National Forest Plan (1998–2007) enhancing the socio-cultural value of forests, including forest recreation.5th National Forest Plan (2008–2017) constructing national forest paths and promoting the forest welfare system.6th National Forest Plan (2018–2035) aiming re-creation of the city as a forested space for life with forests.
Korea Forest Service (2013) under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs.
Korea Forest Service becoming an independent administrative agency (1998).State Forest Administration and Management Act (2005) promoting welfare services by enhancing the recreational function of forests.Forest Welfare Promotion Act (2015) promoting people’s health and quality of life by providing systematic forest welfare services by establishing Korea Forest Welfare Institute (2016).
Establishment of Korea Forest Service (1967) as an external agency under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.Forestry Culture and Recreation Act (2005) focusing on conservation, use, and management of forestry culture and forest resources for recreation.Forest Education Promotion Act (2011) promoting awareness of the value of forests through forest education.
Amendment of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act (2010/1962) including mountains as natural monuments.
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Kim, L.; Jeong, C. Linking Walkable Urbanism and Hiking Tourism in a Mountainous Metropolitan City. Land 2025, 14, 1857. https://doi.org/10.3390/land14091857

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Kim, Lankyung, and Chul Jeong. 2025. "Linking Walkable Urbanism and Hiking Tourism in a Mountainous Metropolitan City" Land 14, no. 9: 1857. https://doi.org/10.3390/land14091857

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Kim, L., & Jeong, C. (2025). Linking Walkable Urbanism and Hiking Tourism in a Mountainous Metropolitan City. Land, 14(9), 1857. https://doi.org/10.3390/land14091857

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