A local-government poll of residents on the South Korean holiday island of Jeju (pictured) suggests at best a lukewarm attitude toward the social and economic role of the destination’s foreigner-only casino industry. The neutrals helped to ensure only one approval rating was above 50 percent: that for casinos boosting local spending by visitors.
Among the 1,000-strong sample, only 25.7 percent of respondents regarded the overall impact of the casinos there as “positive”. A further 28.6 percent saw them as “negative”, with the remaining 45.7 percent having no opinion to share.
But on a question that was new for the 2024 survey compared to a poll the year before – whether “the casino industry contributed to inbound tourists staying longer in Jeju” – a total of 49.9 percent “agreed”, 21.6 percent “disagreed”, and 28.5 percent were “neutral”.
Jeju Special Self-Governing Province has had since 2009, certain regulatory powers for its casinos. The island currently has eight licensed venues, seven of which are open. Operations at Gongzi Casino have been suspended since November, due to renovation of its host hotel, the Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Jeju Ocean Front.
Of those locals who responded to the 2024 survey, circa 49.0 percent agreed that the casinos had contributed to attracting inbound foreign tourists. Nonetheless, Jeju has yet to recover to its pre-pandemic levels of inbound foreign tourism, show local government data.
The tally agreeing in the 2024 poll, that casinos had helped to support foreign tourism, was an improvement by 4.8 percentage points from the 44.3 percent who agreed with that statement in a 2023 survey.
In the latest research, 21.8 percent said they disagreed the casinos had boosted the tally of international visitors. That was up from 18.7 percent of the respondents that took that view in the 2023 poll.
In the 2024 poll, 29.2 percent were neutral on the topic, compared to 37.0 percent who were neutral on that in the 2023 survey.
A survey statement asking whether the island’s casino businesses had contributed to visitors spending more overall when they came to Jeju found that 52.8 percent agreed. That was a 4.8 percentage point improvement from the 48.0 percent of respondents that concurred in last year’s research.
In September, a Jeju government official told GGRAsia that the island’s authorities would like the national government to approve a renewable-licence system for the foreigner-only casinos on the holiday island – rather than the current ‘permanent’ permits – to stimulate competition in the local sector.
