This sounds like a bunch of partisan rhetoric to me:

Lawmakers criticized Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon Wednesday, insisting the local government’s 62-billion-won campaign to transform the capital into a world-class cultural hub has made little progress.

During a parliamentary inspection of the city government, Rep. Chang Je-won of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) said an enormous amount of money has been spent on marketing and advertising to attract foreign tourists over the past two years.

Since Oh took office in 2006, he has placed top priority on promoting tourism under the slogan “Soul of Asia,” saying that a booming tourism industry is key to Seoul prospering in the future.

“Despite the massive increase in the advertising budget, few residents actually feel that they live in a better urban environment than before,” the lawmaker said.

Mayor Oh answered that 40 billion won of the 62 billion won spent was set aside for tourism promotion through international media outlets such as CNN and local media in two target countries ? Japan and China.

“It is too early to evaluate these effects. The situation will get better as time goes by,” he said.

Rep. Choe Kyoo-sik of the largest opposition Democratic Party (DP) expressed skepticism regarding the positive prediction, saying, “The number of foreign tourists visiting Seoul this year decreased.”

Citing a public opinion survey, Choe said more than 70 percent of Seoul residents didn’t feel any difference when it came to their satisfaction on the residential environment after the mayor, an advocate for urban beautification, took office. The survey was conducted by the Korea Society Opinion Institute at Choe’s request.  [Korea TImes]

As a foreigner by unbiased opinion is that Seoul in recent years has done much in the past few years to green up the city and to deny that is either disingenuous or the city has done a good job informing its citizens about its projects to improve the quality of life for the city.

Also the fact that tourist visitors are decreasing to the city I think has more to do with high gas prices effecting people’s budgets to travel and increasing airfares then anything the city has done.
With the current economic meltdown on  top of that I don’t expect Seoul to become a global tourism hot spot any time soon.

Yes the “Soul of Asia” slogan is lame, but the fact of the matter is that no slogan is really going to draw more tourists to the city when what Seoul offers tourists just can’t compare to what nearby China and Japan offer for usually either cheaper or similar amounts of money.  The city has to tap into niche markets such as promoting tourism around their popular Korean dramas which they haven’t fully exploited yet.  Also Seoul needs something that is unique to the city that other major cities in Asia do not have.  For example that is why I have supported rebuilding the old wall around the city that would definitely give a uniqueness to the city.  Something like that would make the city iconic much like Sydney has the Opera House and Paris has the Eiffel Tower.  I’m sure readers out there even have more ideas to improve Seoul, so let’s hear them in the comments section.