Jeju tourism jumps as Netflix K-drama draws foreign visitors
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Jeju Island alone recorded a 17.5 per cent year-on-year increase in overseas visitors.
PHOTO: THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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JEJU – Foreign tourism to Jeju Island jumped in 2025, fuelled by the global popularity of a Netflix K-drama filmed on the island and a growing appetite for travel beyond South Korea’s major cities.
Jeju Island alone recorded a 17.5 per cent year-on-year increase in overseas visitors, driven in part by interest in the series set there.
Promotional efforts tied to the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (Apec), along with local government tourism initiatives, have also helped boost visits to other regions.
According to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute on Dec 21, the share of foreign tourists who visited Jeju among all visitors to South Korea rose for three consecutive quarters in 2025, reaching 8.9 per cent in the first quarter, 9.0 per cent in the second and 10.5 per cent in the third.
The third-quarter figure marked a 0.6 percentage point increase from 9.9 per cent during the same period in 2024.
The Jeju Provincial Government largely attributed the growth to global attention surrounding K-drama When Life Gives You Tangerines.
The four-part Netflix original series topped the platform’s global non-English television rankings and portrays daily life in Jeju Island’s fishing villages.
Following its gradual release in March 2025, Jeju recorded year-on-year increases in foreign visitor numbers every month from April.
From January to September, the total number of foreign visitors to the island reached 1.74 million, up 17.5 per cent from 2024.
The Jeju Haenyeo Museum, which highlights the island’s traditional female divers featured in the series, recorded a 58.9 per cent on-year increase in foreign visitors to nearly 50,000 as of November.
The institute’s data also showed rising shares for North Gyeongsang Province and South Gyeongsang Province as destinations for foreign travellers, up 0.4 percentage point and 0.5 percentage point to 2.3 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively.
The Apec 2025 summit, held in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, from Oct 31 to Nov 1, is widely seen as contributing to the province’s overall growth in foreign visitors.
Central government-led promotion tied to the event helped push the province’s total foreign visitor numbers up 21 per cent between January and November, while Gyeongju alone recorded 17 per cent growth.
In South Gyeongsang Province, travel industry analysts noted that visitors to Busan are increasingly expanding their travel range to nearby areas, supported by local governments’ rollout of longer-stay and interconnected tourism packages.
Meanwhile, Seoul remained the most visited destination among foreign travellers. The proportion of visitors to South Korea who visited Seoul during the July to September period stood at 77.3 per cent, followed by Busan at 16.4 per cent and Gyeonggi Province at 11.3 per cent. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
