Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism and gaming sectors on Jeju Island, South Korea, relied largely on visitation from Mainland China. That’s now changing, because of China’s ongoing restrictions on overseas travel, and its crackdown on Chinese nationals who go abroad to gamble.
“Considering China’s… current pressures on casinos in general, we don’t expect that much” of a market contribution “from Chinese tourists” via the Chinese Mainland, Ko Byoung Hun, assistant director of the Casino Policy Division for Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, told GGRAsia.
“We’d like to focus more on Japan, Taiwan and the South Asian market—promoting marketing and junkets—for the short term,” he said, adding that a special emphasis will be “baby boomers,” Japanese people of means in their late 50s to mid-70s.
Jeju has eight foreigner-only casino properties, some of them still shuttered due to travel limits related to Covid-19.
