Over the last weekend, hundreds of thousands of people visited the international garden expo being held in the southern coastal city of Suncheon, South Jeolla Province. Organizers have raised the targeted number of visitors to the event, which will continue through Oct. 20, from 4 million to 6 million.

Visitors are said to feel refreshed and relaxed while looking around 80 gardens set up by 23 participating countries under a variety of themes at the spacious plot. A number of officials from other cities across the nation have visited the garden expo to benchmark its success. In recent years, local governments have competitively hosted numerous events intended to be international, but few of them have been as successful as the Suncheon Garden Expo.

Contrary to their international facades, most events have attracted only a small number of local visitors, leaving a large deficit. For example, a 2009 global fair on urban development held in Incheon incurred a loss of 15.2 billion won ($13.6 million) to the western port city.

Municipal government heads are to blame for having held ― often ignoring residents’ opinions ― unprofitable events without proper feasibility studies just to demonstrate their accomplishments. Such show-off events have exacerbated financial difficulties of local administrations. Revenues collected by regional governments decreased by 4.4 percent from a year earlier to 9.25 trillion won in the first quarter of this year mainly due to sluggish deals in real estate markets.

Local officials express concerns about deteriorating fiscal pinches, which would force them to suspend or reduce benefit programs including child endowment. These circumstances leave no room for municipal governments to spend money on organizing unprofitable international events visited by few foreigners. It was just ridiculous that the Incheon Metropolitan Government, which poured money into hosting the 2009 urban planning exhibition, failed to pay allowances to its employees last year because of financial restrictions.

The reckless hosting of flashy events has also wasted the central government’s budget. Up to 45 percent of the organizing costs have been covered by money from state coffers.

It was somewhat belated but right for the Finance Ministry to revise rules earlier this month to tighten the process of screening local administrations’ plans for international events. The proportion of the central government’s support was reduced to less than 30 percent. Under the strengthened regulations, the ministry recently assigned a committee of experts and an economic research institute to review the feasibility of seven planned international events that would need more than 1 billion won in state support. Thorough scrutiny should be made into the likely effects of the events, the suitability of their funding plans and the possibility of attracting a large number of foreign visitors.

It also needs to be reminded that active support should be extended to selective events with bright long-term prospects. It is hoped that the Suncheon garden expo will not be exceptional but just one of many successful international events organized by municipal governments.