JEJU-DO < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

It has been reported that more than 623,000 cruise tourists had visited Jeju this year, as of by the end of last month.

According to Jeju-do on December 24, cruise ships made 260 calls to Jeju Island from January to November 30, and the total number of visitors reached 623,000. 484,000 Chinese tourists accounted for 77.8% of the total visitors.

Jeju-do expects an additional 20,000 tourists to visit Jeju by the end of this year by cruise ship.

The Jeju cruise industry peaked in 2016 with 1.2 million annual cruise tourists. However, cruise ships from China were completely cut off due to the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) incident in March 2017, followed by a long recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

With the end of the COVID-19 crisis, 106,611 cruise tourists visited in 2023, followed by 620,000 visitors by November this year, showing a clear recovery trend.

Jeju-do predicts that cruise ships will visit Jeju 344 times next year, up about 19% from this year, and cruise tourists will also reach about 800,000 next year, up more than 24%.

The nationality of cruise tourists, which has been concentrated in China, is also gradually diversifying.

There were only 15 cruise ships departing from outside China in 2023, but increased to 21 this year and 29 are planned to visit Jeju 99 times next year.

In order to increase the ripple effect of cruise tourism on the local economy, Jeju-do plans to implement policies such as supplying Jeju-made ship goods and fresh water and inducing visits to local commercial districts.

It also plans to push for various policies such as distribution of city tour information maps and sales promotional events in cooperation with local commercial districts.

koss@yna.co.kr

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Source: Yonhap News (December 24, 2024)