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Kangwon Land, a public company, opened a water park three years ago saying that it would create a four-season resort.

The project was carried out ignoring the opinion of the Board of Audit and Inspection that a large-scale deficit was likely, but it was already confirmed that the deficit was over 30 billion won.



Reporter Hogun Lee covered the scene.



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is a water park that Kangwon Land opened in Jeongseon in 2018.



It is the size of 7 soccer fields and can accommodate 6,600 people at the same time.



From 2007 to now, only 170 billion won has been spent on the project.



At the time of project implementation, Kangwon Land presented a rosy prospect that it would generate up to KRW 5.6 billion in operating profit annually and KRW 97.3 billion in 30 years.



Is it really going well?



[Kangwon Land Water Park official: (How are you these days? Are there many customers?) There will not be many customers anywhere right now.

(Did you come a lot in the summer?) There weren't many in the summer either.] The



cumulative number of visitors that Kangwon Land expects this year is 1.83 million.



In reality, only 870,000 people, less than half that number, came in.




The accumulated loss alone, far from operating profit, exceeded 32 billion won.



There is also the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, but even before that, the deficit was already over 10 billion won.



All of this was foreseen.



This is the KDI project feasibility report prepared by the Korea Development Institute during the water park promotion process.



It was predicted that the water park's cost-to-return ratio was only 0.92, so the loss was obvious.



The Board of Audit and Inspection have the same opinion.



It is expected to record an operating loss of nearly 150 billion won by 2041, accumulating a loss every year.



Ignoring these warnings and proceeding with the business.



[Lee Joo-hwan / People's Power Rep. (National Assembly Living Self-Defense Force): It opened amid many concerns, but as expected, it is in a deficit.

It is urgent to come up with a plan to activate it.]



Kangwon Land said that the water park was a project aimed at synergy that encompasses hotels and casinos, and said that it would come up with various normalization measures.



(Video coverage: Hwang In-seok, Hong Jong-su, Video editing: Jeon Min-gyu)