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The South Korean resort island has seen a dramatic increase in foreign visitors this year after it was featured in a popular Netflix original drama series.
foreign arrival Jeju Island saw a 17.5 percent year-on-year increase in arrivals to 1.74 million tourists between January and September, according to data from the Korea Institute of Culture and Tourism and the Jeju provincial government. korea herald,
The increase follows several years of uneven recovery for the island Tourism sector following the pandemic and a long-term decline in domestic travel.
Provincial officials have attributed the recent surge largely to international attention surrounding the Netflix series When life gives you tangerinesWhich was shot on Jiju and depicts everyday life its fishing villages,
The four-part slice-of-life series consisting of 16 episodes chronicles the life of Jeju-born Oh Ae Sun, played by the musician and actor. iyuand Yang Gwan Sik, played by Park Bo Gum, and their relationship spanning decades.
Set primarily in the fishing villages of Jeju, the drama brings to the fore their labor haneo Or female free-divers, multi-generational family relationships, and scenes filmed beneath the island’s changing seasons, lava-stone beaches, canola fields, and the UNESCO-listed Seongsan Ilchulbong volcanic crater.
Released in 190 countries in March this year When life gives you tangerines It has topped Netflix’s global non-English television rankings and has been credited with introducing the landscape and culture of Jeju to new foreign audiences.
The series also received strong critical and audience response, with a critics’ score of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 98 percent at the time of writing.
In March, Chinese state-affiliated Global Times The drama was praised as “a new hit among Korean period dramas”, seeing its 9.4 rating on Douban, the highest for any Korean series on the platform in recent years. The coverage fueled speculation that it might signal a possible relaxation of China’s long-standing restrictions on Korean cultural imports, This is often referred to as the “Hallyu ban”.,
Tourism data shows that the impact has been persistent rather than transitory. According to the Korea Institute of Culture and Tourism, the share of foreign tourists visiting Jeju among all international visitors to South Korea increased for three consecutive quarters this year, from 8.9 percent in the first quarter to 9.0 percent in the second and 10.5 percent in the third.
Monthly statistics show the impact of the series even more clearly. Following its premiere in March, Jeju recorded year-on-year increases in the number of foreign visitors every month through April, local officials said.
Cultural sites like the Jeju Haenyeo Museum, which highlights the Traditional female free-divers of the island Whose way of life is reflected in the series, there was a 58.9 per cent increase in foreign visitors year on year, to almost 50,000 by November.
According to Korea Airports Corporation, during the May holiday period, Jeju’s airport handled 516,000 passengers, about 4,000 more than the same period last year. korea joongang dailyWhile passenger numbers from January to March were only 88 percent of last year’s levels, traffic increased to 95,7 percent in April, followed by a sharp increase at the beginning of summer,
On June 6, South Korea’s Memorial Day, the airport received 93,000 passengers, the highest in a single day since 2019.
Airport officials and airlines said the renewed speed was partly due to “tangerineTourism, noting that filming locations across the island have become new travel hotspots for both domestic and foreign visitors, including travelers from Japan and Taiwan.
Once South Korea’s leading domestic vacation destination And popular with honeymooners in the 1980s, city dwellers and pandemic-era travelers in the early 2000s, Jeju has struggled in recent years as Korean tourists increasingly opt for overseas destinations such as Japan, China and Southeast Asia.
The number of domestic visitors fell steadily from 13.8 million in 2022 to 11.86 million in 2024, while the number of domestic flights operated by Jeju International Airport also declined over the same period, according to a korea times Reports from earlier this year.
Local officials have acknowledged that high prices, service complaints and concerns over visitor safety had hurt the appeal of Jeju, which previously attracted international attention. When life gives you tangerines Especially contemporary.
Building on previous influences seen from other hit Korean dramas such as winter Sonata And our bluesThe provincial government has launched seasonal travel campaigns and partnered with the National Heritage Initiative to promote Jeju’s spring landscape, cultural festivals, and filming locations associated with the show.
Airport officials and airlines have also responded by running promotional campaigns, expanding flight schedules and resuming or adding international routes, including services connecting Jeju to major cities in Taiwan and a new Jeju-Singapore route that began in August.
“We hope that Jeju’s cultural and natural resources will be introduced to the world through the global success of the drama depicting Jeju’s beautiful four seasons,” said Kim Yang Bo, director of the Jeju Government’s Culture, Sports and Education Bureau. korea times earlier this year.