Jeju Island, Re-promotion of Hallasan National Park Exploration Reservation System

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters (Jeju) Reporter Park Chang-won] The Halla Mountain National Park exploration reservation system will be relaunched after 10 months.

The Jeju Special Self-Governing Province World Heritage Headquarters announced on the 10th that the Halla Mountain National Park exploration reservation system, temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 situation, will be operated again starting January 1 of next year.

Accordingly, visitors to Halla Mountain National Park will need to make advance reservations through the exploration reservation system starting from the 1st of next month.

The Halla Mountain exploration reservation system was established to ensure safety during explorations in the post-COVID-19 era and to preserve a sustainable natural ecosystem by managing an appropriate number of visitors.

Previously, Jeju Province limited the number of daily visitors to 1,500 for the Seongpanak Course (1,000 people) and Gwaneumsa Course (500 people), which allow climbing to the summit of Halla Mountain, and conducted advance reservations from January 2, with a pilot operation of the reservation system from February 1 to 12.

However, due to a sharp decline in tourists caused by COVID-19, and following requests from the tourism industry to promote tourism for regional economic recovery and to postpone the implementation, the system was temporarily suspended after 12 days.

According to Jeju Province, from January to the end of October this year, a total of 582,880 visitors explored Halla Mountain National Park.

As of the 31st of last month, the number of tourists visiting Jeju was 8,466,228, a decrease of about 33.2% compared to the same period last year (12,670,962), but the number of Halla Mountain visitors decreased by 14.6% compared to the same month last year (682,726).

This is interpreted as reflecting a preference for outdoor tourist spots due to the COVID-19 situation.

Jeju Province has prepared the exploration reservation system to minimize waiting times ahead of the pilot operation resumption next year and has established a time-slot reservation system and penalty measures to prevent damage caused by reservation no-shows.

First, regarding the reservation system, the differences between mobile phone models and brightness have been standardized to optimize QR code recognition rates. To prepare for visitor congestion, the number of gates will be increased from one to two, and hand scanners will be installed to enable quick entry.

Given the COVID-19 situation, unmanned QR code issuance kiosks have also been installed at trail entrances to allow contactless entry authentication.

In particular, since the daily climbing capacity is fixed, the program has been improved so that reservations are automatically canceled if the reserved exploration time passes, preventing other visitors from losing opportunities due to no-shows.

For no-show visitors, measures are being promoted to restrict reservation exploration for three months after one no-show and for one year after two no-shows.

Advance reservations for Halla Mountain National Park can be made immediately by entering name, residence area (city/province), and contact information through the exploration reservation system. For groups, one person can reserve for up to 10 people.

Kim Dae-geun, head of the World Heritage Headquarters, said, “Through the resumption of the pilot operation of the Halla Mountain National Park exploration reservation system, we will be able to establish protective measures for sustainable environmental assets,” and added, “Along with issues such as illegal parking on the 5·16 Road, it will also contribute to a customized quarantine management system that can quickly trace movement paths in case of confirmed COVID-19 cases.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.