More golf madness

I was searching for some Jeju weather updates for this week's KLPGA tournament and came across an interesting article by the Korea Times about the increase of golfers to Jeju:

Thanks to cheaper green fees and warm weather on top of the expensive dollar and cheaper won, many Korean golfers have decided to visit Jeju instead of going to Southeast Asian countries -- about 155,600 local golfers have already played the greens on Jeju.

This is from an article back in December, so I'm sure the number of golfers is even higher. There has also been a dramatic increase of Japanese tourists, whom are spending more due to the strength of the yen to the won:

According to its tourism association, a Japanese tourist spends an average of 1.9 million won per three-day visit, excluding airfare. The amount is much higher than Chinese's 690,000 won and Korean's 370,000 won. "A Japanese person spends more than five times what a Korean does these days," a vendor said.

Merchants are going all out to attract more visitors. They have requested that domestic air carriers provide more flights to and from the island and create more package tours for the region.

To cater to this demand, airlines have increased international flights to Jeju in the past couple of months. There are even more packages available through travel agencies:

Travel agencies are developing packages geared toward natural heritage top-notch hotels and more of the island's offerings, and are expecting over 3,000 more visitors in the first two months of next year.

It would be interesting to see how the results have fared thus far compared to last year, and to see how the rest of the year turns out.