Analysis of Jeju Island’s Cruise Route Networks accompanied by Korea-China’s THAAD Dispute

Hur Yoon Seok^*, Shin Soo Yong^**

^*First author, Associate Professor, Juje National University, yshur@jejunu.ac.kr

^**Corresponding author, Senior Researcher, Korea Maritime Institute, shinsy@kmi.re.kr

© Copyright 2021 Korea Maritime Institute. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jun 30, 2019

ABSTRACT

Jeju Island was once well-known for its cruise industry and for attracting numerous Chinese tourists. In general, Korea’s cruise market has enjoyed a significant and rapid growth until the THAAD dispute broke between Korea and China a couple of years ago. As a result of such dispute, Chinese government has placed a ban on tours to Korea and this has started to affect the Korean cruise industry leading to a sharp decrease. Those used to call at Jeju Island were no longer used the routes to come to Korea but diverted its routes to elsewhere such as Japan.

In this study, it is going to analyze Jeju Island’s cruise network before and after the THAAD dispute between Korea and China. This shall enable the research to find out the exact problem and market situation of cruise industry in Jeju Island. Once analyzed, this paper will develop strategy and make recommendations to overcome such obstacles.

Keywords: Cruise; China; Korea; THAAD; Network