A total of 34 international cruise ships are set to make more than 340 stops at Jeju Island in the coming year, with each vessel carrying between 3,000 and 5,000 passengers on average. Jeju officials anticipate this could push the island’s cruise tourism to surpass one million visitors in 2025, marking the first time in nine years.
According to the “2025 Berth Allocation in Cruise Ports” report disclosed by Jeju on Dec. 9, the cruise ships are scheduled for 344 port calls throughout the year. The Jeju Coastal Ferry Terminal will handle 166 arrivals, while Seogwipo Gangjeong Cruise Terminal is slated for 178. Docking schedules are finalized based on applications submitted by shipping companies incorporating Jeju into their itineraries. Vessels exceeding 100,000 tons are directed to Gangjeong Port, while smaller ships dock at Jeju Port.
The recovery of Jeju’s cruise tourism sector depends heavily on group tours from China. The island experienced consistent growth in cruise passenger numbers from 590,400 in 2014 to 622,068 in 2015, peaking at 1,209,106 in 2016. However, the numbers plunged to 189,732 in 2017 after China’s government imposed a ban on group tours to South Korea in response to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. This decline persisted, with just 21,703 cruise visitors recorded in 2018.
A modest recovery followed, with figures rising to 44,266 in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a standstill. From 2020 to 2022, no cruise ships arrived at Jeju.
A turnaround began last year after China lifted its ban on group tours to South Korea. In 2022, Jeju recorded 100,661 cruise passengers. This year, as of late November, 622,958 visitors had arrived via cruise ships. Chinese tourists accounted for the largest share at 484,409, followed by 53,668 visitors from Japan.
