As the popularity of K-pop culture grows, K-pop-motivated tourism continues to receive attention from scholars. Due to the relatively later development of K-pop tourism research, there are limited studies in relation to sustainability of destination competitiveness. Therefore, this dissertation expands the existing knowledge of K-Pop cultural tourism, fand contributes to the theory of pop culture tourism. The outcome of this dissertation has practical implications for destination marketers developing pop culture tourism to improve their competitiveness.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the phenomenon of K-pop culture tourism, using BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan) as a case study, and to analyse the tourism activities undertaken by BTS fans using the concept of place attachment. The dissertation employs qualitative research and an interpretive approach. Non-participatory Netnography is used to observe and analyse 20 users’ Instagram posts from the open social platform. This dissertation examines the tourism activities that tourists engage in as a result of their loyalty to K-pop culture and further discusses the longevity of K-pop tourism in sustaining the tourism destination competitiveness of a place. The findings demonstrate that the place dependence and place identity attributes of place attachment have different manifestations in K-pop tourism activities. The different manifestations reflect the influence of place attachment on tourists’ preferences for K-pop tourism activities. This dissertation reveals the positive impact of tourists’ emotional factors due to place attachment on the competitiveness of the destination tourism market. The practical implications of the dissertation reflect the significance of pop culture and fan markets in sustaining the competitiveness tourism destinations.