
Tourists take in the wintry scenery at Mount Halla, Jeju Island, on Dec. 27, 2025. (Yonhap)

I can understand why tourism in Jeju is spiking. The K-drama when Life Gives You Tangerines is really good and beautifully filmed on Jeju island:

Foreign tourism to Jeju Island jumped this year, fueled by the global popularity of a Netflix K-drama filmed on the island and a growing appetite for travel beyond South Korea’s major cities.
Jeju Island alone recorded a 17.5 percent year-on-year increase in overseas visitors, driven in part by interest in the series set there. Promotional efforts tied to the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, along with local government tourism initiatives, have also helped boost visits to other regions.
According to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute on Sunday, the share of foreign tourists who visited Jeju among all visitors to Korea rose for three consecutive quarters this year, reaching 8.9 percent in the first quarter, 9.0 percent in the second and 10.5 percent in the third.
The third-quarter figure marked a 0.6 percentage point increase from 9.9 percent during the same period last year.
The Jeju Provincial Government largely attributed the growth to global attention surrounding “When Life Gives You Tangerines.”
You can read more at the link.

This is pretty bold stripping an entire orchard of all of its tangerines:

A tangerine farm on Jeju Island, spanning about 56,000 square meters, was stripped clean overnight, local media reported Thursday.
According to the reports, the farm owner arrived at her farm in Bongae-dong, Jeju, on Monday, only to find that every last tangerine had disappeared.
“I thought I was in the wrong field,” she told a Jeju broadcaster. “All the tangerines that had been hanging from the trees were gone, and all I could see were green branches. It was unbelievable.”
Local police, based on trash and other items left at the scene, have identified a suspect in his 50s. During questioning, he reportedly said he deployed nine workers and harvested the entire orchard in a single day, claiming he was simply following instructions from a team leader.
The orchard had been expected to yield about 3 tons of tangerines this year.
As of Nov. 18, the average wholesale price of tangerines at the nation’s nine largest markets was 13,000 won per 5 kilograms, which is 7.4 percent higher than the same period last year, when the price was 12,100 won. It is also 15 percent higher than in 2023, when it was 11,300 won.
You can read more at the link.





