Summer vacationers cool off in a stream in Inje County's Baekdam Valley in Gangwon Province, Aug. 3. Courtesy of Inje County
Korea's southern resort island of Jeju is losing its luster as a leading travel spot for Koreans despite the post-pandemic recovery of domestic travel demand, a survey released Tuesday showed.
Instead, Gangwon Province on the eastern mountainous coast of the Korean Peninsula, known to offer similar travel purposes as Jeju, is emerging as a trending destination.
According to Consumer Insight's monthly report Tuesday, Koreans' interest in travel to Jeju Island stood at 29 percent in July, marking the lowest since the survey started in 2016.
"Interest" refers to the percentage of respondents who said their desire to visit a specific destination has grown compared to the year before.
After dropping 9 percentage points from 41 percent to 32 percent in May, the figure fell again by 4 percentage points from 33 percent to 29 percent from June to July.
So far, Korea's domestic travel trends have followed a similar post-pandemic trajectory regardless of region.
Most regions showed a gradual decline until 2019 and the plunge right after the COVID-19 pandemic began, followed by a sharp rise from 2021 to 2022 to the highest, and then a decline again.
However, the downward trend for Jeju is exceptional. Interest plunged by 18 percentage points between 2022 and 2023 and continued to fall from January to July this year from 41 percent to 29 percent.
The drop in Gangwon Province was relatively small, with decreasing by 12 percentage points from 55 percent to 43 percent during the same period.
Notably, Jeju Island hit an all-time low in terms of travel "plan sharing."
"Plan sharing" refers to the percentage of people who are actually planning to travel to a certain destination within the next three months.
The monthly average remained at 12 percent for the first seven months of this year, but marked lows of 9 percent in May and again in July.
It is the lowest across the country and lower than the figures for the Chungcheong provinces, which have relatively weak travel infrastructure.
On the other hand, the figure for Gangwon Province in the January-to-July period stood at 23 percent, outpacing Jeju's 12 percent.
The figure then reversed to an upward trend from March when Jeju's decline began, reaching a peak in July at 27 percent, three times higher than Jeju's.
The survey shows that Jeju and Gangwon Province overlap in terms of travel purposes.
This year, those planning for a trip to Jeju cited "natural scenery" at 35 percent, "resting" at 24 percent and "gastronomy" at 18 percent as the purposes of the trip.
Gangwon Province reported a similar trend, with 36 percent citing "natural scenery," 24 percent citing "resting" and 18 saying "gastronomy," showing the complementary nature between the two destinations.
"The trend shows that travel interest and plan sharing for Gangwon and Jeju Island are inversely proportional," the report said, suggesting that the "eyes of travelers who have turned away from Jeju Island are heading to Gangwon Province."