There are growing calls for the Governor of Jeju Province in South Korea to revoke the 30-day visa-exempt status for foreign tourists to the island, following a series of recent violent incidents involving mainly Chinese, but also other tourist nationalities.

 

This has led to local Jeju residents organising a petition signed by around 11,000 residents at press-time – all supporting an appeal to Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong to abolish the 30-day visa waiver for Chinese and other tourists visiting Jeju.

 

The most serious of these aforementioned ‘incidents’ included the widely publicised head injuries sustained by a Korean restaurant owner – allegedly hospitalised after being attacked by a group of Chinese tourists – plus a tragic and fatal incident involving the murder of an elderly woman. She was allegedly attacked by a deranged Chinese tourist while praying in a church.

 

 

Petitioners and protestors tell local media that these are just a handful from several growing incidents, with a total of nearly 400 foreign tourists arrested last year – around 280 of whom were Chinese – although there has actually been a near 60% increase in crimes committed by ‘all foreign tourists’ this year.

 

Jeju Governor Won Hee-ryong (left) has since responded by calling for calm and rightly pointing out that many other tourist locations inevitably face problems where visitors of multiple nationalities now travel in substantially larger numbers than ever before.

 

Others also point out that 280 arrests – mostly petty and medium offences – from the 2.6m Chinese visitors last year is hardly an epidemic statistic. This is pretty important, since Jeju’s tourism industry is now clearly dependent on Chinese visitors and the island is something of a magnet for leading duty free operators, with its unique $600 tax free allowance for ‘foreign’ visitors.

 

A total of around 2.6m Mainland Chinese visited Jeju in 2015, with many on the visa waiver programme and some believe this number could even reach as high as 4m by the end of this year.

 

 

 

As reported by Korean Customs earlier this year, Jeju ‘duty free’ outlets and all other specialist shops (including diplomatic) generated $481.1m in 2015.

 

Several DF&TR retailers have also strengthened their businesses in Jeju relatively recently. For example, Lotte Duty Free opened its latest 6,612sq m downtown duty free store 18 months ago. This is located on the first to third floors of the Lotte City Hotel located in the Doryeong-ro district of Jeju city, the island’s main centre.

 

Lotte – the world’s second-largest duty free operator – also claims to have invested around $72m on this store, including all of the interior fit outs in the multiple product category areas located over three floors. Shilla Duty Free has also operated a major downtown store in the location since 1989.

 

Earlier this year, DFS Group also announced its new ‘supply partnership’ with the Jeju Tourism Organization (JTO) and its new store, called appropriately, The Jeju Duty Free.