Idyllic holiday island sees spike in tourist numbers after appearing in hit Netflix show

Long a popular destination among South Koreans, Jeju island has seen a surge in foreign visitors since premiere of ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines’

When Life Gives You Tangerines (Netflix)

A South Korean resort island has seen a dramatic rise in overseas visitors this year after it featured in a popular Netflix original drama series.

Foreign arrivals to Jeju Island rose 17.5 per cent year on year between January and September, reaching 1.74 million visitors, according to data from the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute and the Jeju provincial government, reported the Korea Herald.

The increase has followed several years of uneven recovery for the island’s tourism sector after the pandemic and a longer-term decline in domestic travel.

Provincial authorities have largely attributed the recent surge to international attention surrounding the Netflix series When Life Gives You Tangerines, which was filmed across Jeju and portrays everyday life in its fishing villages.

The four-volume slice-of-life series, with 16 episodes, followed the lives of Jeju-born Oh Ae Sun, played by musician and actor IU, and Yang Gwan Sik, played by Park Bo Gum, and their relationship across decades.

Set largely in Jeju’s fishing villages, the drama foregrounds the labour of haenyeo or female free-divers, multigenerational family ties, and the island’s changing seasons, with scenes shot along lava-stone coastlines, canola fields, and beneath the Unesco-listed volcanic crater of Seongsan Ilchulbong.

Released in March this year in 190 countries, When Life Gives You Tangerines topped Netflix’s global non-English television rankings and has been credited with introducing Jeju’s landscapes and culture to new overseas audiences.

The series also drew strong critical and audience response, holding a 100 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 98 per cent audience score at the time of writing.

In March, the Chinese state-affiliated Global Times praised the drama as “a new hit among Korean period dramas,” noting its 9.4 rating on DouBan, the highest for a Korean series on the platform in recent years. The coverage fuelled speculation that it could signal a possible easing of China’s long-standing restrictions on Korean cultural imports, often referred to as the “Hallyu ban”.

Tourism data suggest the impact has been sustained instead of fleeting. The share of foreign tourists visiting Jeju among all international visitors to South Korea rose for three consecutive quarters this year, from 8.9 per cent in the first quarter to 9.0 per cent in the second, and 10.5 per cent in the third, according to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute.

Monthly figures show the series’ effect even more clearly. After its premiere in March, Jeju recorded year-on-year increases in foreign visitor numbers every month from April onward, local officials said.

Cultural sites, like the Jeju Haenyeo Museum which highlights the island’s traditional female free-divers whose way of life appears in the series, reported a 58.9 per cent rise in foreign visitors year on year, to nearly 50,000 by November.

During the May holiday period, Jeju’s airport handled 516,000 passengers, around 4,000 more than during the same stretch last year, the Korea Airports Corporation said, according to Korea JoongAng Daily. While passenger numbers from January to March stood at just 88 per cent of last year’s level, April traffic rebounded to 95.7 per cent, followed by a sharp rise in early summer.

On 6 June, South Korea’s Memorial Day, the airport processed 93,000 travellers, which is the highest single-day total since 2019.

Airport officials and airlines have attributed the renewed momentum partly to “Tangerines” tourism, noting that filming locations across the island have become new travel hotspots for both domestic and overseas visitors, including travellers from Japan and Taiwan.

Once South Korea’s leading domestic holiday destination and popular with honeymooners in the 1980s, city dwellers in the early 2000s, and pandemic-era travellers, Jeju has struggled in recent years as Korean tourists increasingly opted for overseas destinations such as Japan, China, and Southeast Asia.

When Life Gives You Tangerines (Netflix)

Domestic visitor numbers fell steadily from 13.8 million in 2022 to 11.86 million in 2024, while the number of domestic flights handled by Jeju International Airport also declined over the same period, according to a Korea Times report from earlier this year.

Local officials have acknowledged that high prices, service complaints, and concerns over visitor safety had previously dented Jeju’s appeal, which made the international attention generated by When Life Gives You Tangerines especially timely.

Building on the previous effects seen from other hit Korean dramas like Winter Sonata and Our Blues, the provincial government has launched seasonal travel campaigns and partnered with national heritage initiatives to promote Jeju’s spring landscapes, cultural festivals, and filming locations linked to the show.

Airport officials and airlines have also responded by rolling out promotional campaigns, expanding flight schedules, and resuming or adding international routes, including services connecting Jeju with major cities in Taiwan and a new Jeju-Singapore route that began in August.

“We hope that Jeju's cultural and natural resources will be introduced around the world through the global success of the drama that captures the beautiful four seasons of Jeju,” Kim Yang Bo, director of the culture, sports, and education bureau of the Jeju government, told Korea Times earlier this year.