Jeju Festivals with "Price Gouging" Banned for Three Years

Province Significantly Tightens Evaluation Criteria
Budget Also Cut in Case of Controversy

A festival site in Jeju packed with a large crowd. (This photo is not related to any specific content of the article.)

From now on, any festival in Jeju that becomes embroiled in a "price gouging" controversy will be immediately excluded from the list of Jeju provincial-designated festivals and will be barred from applying for three years.

The Jeju Special Self-Governing Province announced on February 4 that it has finalized a new evaluation system for selecting provincial-designated festivals, which strengthens public interest and accountability, and will apply it starting this year.

The core of this overhaul is the application of a "zero-tolerance policy" to festivals that damage Jeju's tourism image.

Under the revised plan, if the Festival Development Committee decides to impose sanctions because a festival has caused public outrage due to price gouging or similar issues, that festival will be immediately excluded from the evaluation for that year.

The sanctions will not be a one-off measure: from the date of the decision, the festival will be completely barred from entering the evaluation process for three years, and during the same three-year period it will also face a disadvantage in which the subsidy rate from the budget will be capped at a maximum of 50%.

The criteria for score deductions in evaluations have also been significantly strengthened.

To ensure effective sanctions, the province has raised the previous maximum deduction limit of 3 points to 15 points, a fivefold increase. Specifically, penalties will be imposed for the following: social controversy (-7 points), wasteful spending such as excessively hiring celebrities (-4 points), and operating programs that lack a clear identity (-4 points).

On the other hand, festivals with global competitiveness will receive benefits. The province has created a new bonus category called "global readiness," under which festivals that provide multilingual information materials or have systems in place to guide foreign visitors will be granted incentives.

Kim Yangbo, Director of Tourism and Exchange for Jeju Province, said, "We have established the principle that festivals that cause controversy will clearly face consequences," adding, "We will strictly manage on-site operations so that Jeju's festivals can restore trust and build global competitiveness."

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