"Foreigners Visiting Jeju Love Korean Food... Japanese Tourists Have the Highest Spending Rate"

Jeju Island-Jeju Tourism Organization, Analysis Using Shinhan Card Big Data
China and Taiwan Prefer 'Chicken' Beyond Korean Cuisine
Bakery and Pizza Shops Popular in the US and Singapore

The most preferred food among foreign tourists visiting Jeju in the first half of this year was Korean cuisine. Among the countries, Japanese tourists showed a high interest in Korean food.

Jeju Province and Jeju Tourism Organization announced on the 22nd the results of an analysis of foreign tourists' credit card spending at restaurants based on Shinhan Card sales data from a service contract. According to the survey, from January to June this year, a total of 185,166 foreign tourists from eight countries including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand visited Jeju (including cruise tourists), and their food and beverage spending in the province was estimated at approximately 20.734 billion KRW.

Among this, meal-related spending accounted for 75% (approximately 15.53 billion KRW), while alcoholic beverages and drinks accounted for 25% (5.21 billion KRW). Jeju Tourism Organization analyzed preferred food types focusing on 9.225 billion KRW spent by foreigners across 10 restaurant categories where consumption data was available, including Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Western, snack foods, and others. As a result, foreign tourists from the eight countries spent 80.6% (7.436 billion KRW) of their consumption at Korean restaurants. This was followed by bakeries at 5.1% (467 million KRW), chicken restaurants at 4.9% (448 million KRW), pizza at 3.2% (295 million KRW), Chinese cuisine at 1.9% (170.6 million KRW), and Western cuisine at 1.5% (137 million KRW).

Among the eight countries, Japanese tourists had the highest Korean food consumption rate at 86.6%, followed by Indonesia at 82.5%, Taiwan at 81.4%, and Malaysia and China both at 80.9%, showing a preference for Korean cuisine. Analyzing preferred foods other than Korean cuisine, Chinese and Taiwanese tourists preferred 'chicken' next to Korean food, while tourists from the United States and Singapore tended to prefer bakeries and pizza specialty stores.

Jeju Province and Jeju Tourism Organization have been promoting various promotions featuring Jeju food in their overseas marketing efforts. A representative from Jeju Tourism Organization stated, "Taking this analysis of foreign tourists' credit card spending by restaurant category as an opportunity, we will further promote gourmet products centered on Korean cuisine, especially Jeju local dishes and fusion foods," and added, "We ask for efforts to develop unique gourmet products and services at tourism sites as well."

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