A “dolharbang” (stone grandfather) wears sunglasses at Hamdeok Beach in the city of Jeju on South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju on June 21, 2020. (Yonhap)
JEJU, April 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Despite an increasing number of tourists returning to South Korea’s southern Jeju Island for tourism, their level of satisfaction continues to go downhill as the pandemic drags on, a survey showed Wednesday.
The Jeju Tourism Organization conducted a survey of 500 people each month during last year except for the March to May period, which showed that 82.1 percent of domestic travelers revisited Jeju for tourism, which was higher than the 69.6 percent reported in 2019 and 80 percent in 2020.
Each South Korean tourist visited Jeju 3.28 times on average. The number of those visiting the island more than four times also went up by 7 percentage points from the previous year (27.8 percent), reaching 34.9 percent.
Travelers stayed on the island for 4.57 days on average, which was 0.4 days more than the previous year.
Consumption patterns showed that each traveler spent 600,626 won (US$492) per trip, which was 94,282 won higher than the previous year.
Solitary travelers, accounting for 88 percent of all travelers to Jeju, spent 616,856 won per trip, which was 105,675 won higher than the previous year. Most of spending was on accommodations (154,089 won).
The overall level of satisfaction for traveling to Jeju has been dropping, from 4.09 points in 2019 (out of the full score of 5) to 3.96 points in 2020 and 3.88 points in 2021.
Tourists were least satisfied with the cost of travel (2.82 points), followed by public transportation (3.28 points) and shopping (3.38 points).
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
