On the 22nd of last month, the Jeju Tourism Organization announced the results of the analysis of credit card consumption by foreign tourists in the restaurant industry based on sales data from Shinhan Card.

The survey covered the credit card sales data of 185,166 foreign tourists (including cruise passengers) from eight countries, including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, who visited Jeju from January to June this year.

In total, the surveyed tourists spent 20.734 billion won on food and beverages, of which 75% (15.53 billion won) was spent on meals and 25% (5.21 billion won) on alcohol and beverages.

When analyzing the total amount spent by foreigners on the 10 culinary categories, such as Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Western, light Korean snacks, and other food, which correspond to the subcategories of the Korean restaurant industry classification table, the total amount spent by foreigners was 9.23 billion won.

Of this amount, Korean food accounted for 7.44 billion won, or 80.6% of the total spent by foreign tourists from eight countries.

This was followed by baked goods at 5.1% (467 million won), fried chicken at 4.9% (448 million won), pizza at 3.2% (295 million won), Chinese food at 1.9% (170.6 million won), and Western food at 1.5% (137 million won).

In particular, Chinese and Taiwanese tourists preferred fried chicken in second place after Korean food, while tourists from the United States and Singapore preferred baked goods and pizza.

Jeju Special Self-governing Province and Jeju Tourism Organization have been promoting various programs based on Jeju food culture in their overseas marketing efforts.

An official from the Jeju Tourism Organization commented, “Based on this analysis of credit card spending on each restaurant type by foreign tourists, we will promote a wider range of food products centered on Korean cuisine, especially Jeju's local and fusion foods,” and added, “We hope that the tourism industry will also make efforts to develop unique food products and services.”