This study aims at suggesting the export promotion strategies for lily by investigating manifest export market Japan and other latent export markets including Russia and China. The Dutch lily industry is also surveyed for making benchmark for Korean lily industry. In addition, the domestic lily industry is also analyzed.
As for the domestic problems of Korean lily industry, heavily dependency on imported roots, densely cultivating of lily, severe competition among major cultivating areas for export market, unstable supply of lily for export, and heterogeneous quality of lily in the same box are pointed out.
Along with economic depression, the consumption of cut flower in Japan has declined and Japanese consumers consider 'quality' as the most important in buying flowers. While the consumption for events or ceremony has decreased, the one for house and gift uses has increased. It takes seven days for Korean lily to be marketed and consumed since it is shipped in Pusan port. During the quarantine and marketing, several problems are observed, which may lower the quality of Korean lily in Japan market significantly. First, since the quarantine is proceeded on the asphalt-paved road without any cooling system, Korean lily may flower or be damaged by forming dew before reaching consumers. Second, the temperature of container in Japan is lower than the normal temperature for storage, which may degenerate the quality of Korean lily. Third, the quality and form of box is different from producing areas and the quality in the same box is not uniform. These weak points influence on the credibility of Japanese buyers and auction prices negatively.
In line with rapid economic growth and increase in per capita GDP, Russia is one of the bright prospect markets for Korean lily export. In general, Russian consumers prefer traditional and large flowers unlike Japanese consumers who love sophisticated flowers. Under the European cultural background, most of Russian like flowers regardless the level of income. As for lily, long and strong stemmed lily with a large bud is preferred.
China has become one of the largest flower producing and consuming countries in the world since its flower industry has grown rapidly. Major lily producing regions are Yunnan, Liaoning, and Lingyuan. Like Korea, China also imports most of lily roots mainly from the Netherlands. The size of roots that is commonly cultivated ranges from 12cm to 14cm. Chinese consume a large amount of flower during the spring season holiday. Major group of consumers purchas commonly c are abovnlyiddateincome class. Currently Chinese lilies are consumed mainly in the domestic markets. However, since China has the advantage of natural condition for producing lily over Korea, its lily is likely to compete with Korean lily in the Japanese market in the near future.
Major implications from the study on the Dutch lily industry may be summarized as follows; firstly, the Dutch lily growers build a lily research institute in order to solve the problems facing lily industry and foster specialized manpower for their industry. Secondly, it is evaluated that the quality of Korean lily is lagged behind the Netherlands lily in terms of the length and thickness of stem, the size and color of flower. And the Dutch skill of controlling lily producing environment is highly advanced compare with the Korean lily industry. Thirdly, the Dutch lily growers do not reuse lily roots after harvesting flowers since they think that reusing lily roots is not economical. Lastly, they control the timing of marketing and maintain the ability of all the year round marketing by differentiating cultivating time.
There are opportunities, threats, and strong and weak points in the Japanese, Russia, and Chinese lily markets. Expanding lily export encompasses not only increasing export quantity but also rising export price. Differentiated marketing strategies need to be applied according to the product life cycle. In the Japan market, exporting lily with high quality should increase for expanding current export considerably. On the other hand, as for Russia and Chinese markets, export promotion strategies including opening up the markets are the most important for launching Korean lily export.