December 22, 2025
SEOUL – Foreign tourism to Jeju Island jumped this year, fueled 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 percent 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, along with local government tourism initiatives, have also helped boost visits to other regions.
According to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute on Sunday, the share of foreign tourists who visited Jeju among all visitors to Korea rose for three consecutive quarters this year, reaching 8.9 percent in the first quarter, 9.0 percent in the second and 10.5 percent in the third.
The third-quarter figure marked a 0.6 percentage point increase from 9.9 percent during the same period last year.
The Jeju Provincial Government largely attributed the growth to global attention surrounding “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, 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 percent from a year earlier. The Jeju Haenyeo Museum, which highlights the island’s traditional female divers featured in the series, recorded a 58.9 percent 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 travelers, up 0.4 percentage point and 0.5 percentage point to 2.3 percent and 2.2 percent, 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 percent on year between January and November, while Gyeongju alone recorded 17 percent 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 travelers. The proportion of visitors to Korea who visited Seoul during the July to September period stood at 77.3 percent, followed by Busan at 16.4 percent and Gyeonggi Province at 11.3 percent.