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This Saengnamu article is currently under review by the editorial staff.
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 | |  Hikers are trekking along Jeju Olle trails near Mt. Sanbang | | | ©2009 Jeju Olle | | For over a thousand years, Camino de Santiago, the ancient path spanning from Southern France to Northern Spain has attracted countless number of pilgrims from Europe and Asia. Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian novelist wrote The Pilgrimage in 1987, inspired after walking the 800Km long pilgrimage. Today, Camino de Santiago or St. James’ Way is beaten every year by over 100,000 visitors coming from all over the world, who are searching for a spiritual healing and rejuvenation be it Christian or pagan.
But who would have imagined that two thousand years after St. James first walked the path, his footsteps would inspire tens of thousands of Koreans halfway around the world to explore their own sacred island?
 | | | The map of 15 Jeju Olle routes surrounding Mt. Halla | | | ©2009 Jeju Olle | | After 23 years of taxing days at the various newsrooms, Suh Myung-sook, then editor-in-chief of OhmyNews, a pioneering Korean citizen journalism site decided in September 2006 that she had had enough as a newswoman. She took a flight to Spain and soon started her own 36-day pilgrim along Camino de Santiago.
While walking the trail, she came across Paulo Coelho in person who was then filming a documentary series about Camino de Santiago. She also met a British girl she remembers as 'Henney' near the end of the journey. Ms. Suh and Henney were chatting about how great it was for them to walk the ancient path one night when Henney suggested what came as a revelation to her; if the journey was so great for us, why not build our own Camino de Santiago in the homeland when we go back?
Ms. Suh recalled how beautiful and serene Jeju was when she was growing up in the island years ago. She came back to Jeju and explored “Olle,” the narrow local pathways formed by low-rising black stone walls snaking along hundreds of bucolic seaside towns. Ms. Suh realized that by restoring old paths and creating new roads for hikers to explore, she could easily build trail routes in the island that would match those in Spain.
The first trail route was opened to the public in September, 2007. Since then, Ms. Suh and her Jeju Olle exploration team have created a combined total of 250km of walking trails in Jeju Island. Even enlisted soldiers training in the local marine camp volunteered to connect the seaside paths broken by rocky terrains. Currently fifteen trail routes have been opened to walkers and the trail exploration team is still working on new routes.
Jeju Olle has soon proved to be an instant hit among Korean hikers who’ve been looking for an alternative way to enjoy the island. In its first year, some 3000 hikers visited Jeju to enjoy Olle trails but the number soon exploded by 10 folds in the 2nd year of the program's inception. This year alone over 200,000 hikers are believed to have walked Olle trails by September.
Jeju’s has come a long way since it started the modern tourism industry, going through several ups and downs for the past three decades until it saw the success of Olle.
In ’70s and ’80s, when Jeju was Korea’s Hawaii, Koreans would visit Jeju for their honeymoon and revisit the island a few years later to commemorate their first visit. Hopping over some well-known tourist destinations by black cab limos or tour buses was the most preferred mode of enjoying the island back then. With the exception of a few hikers or cyclists who were willing to venture out to the far corners of the island, Jeju had remained one of the many well-manicured but prosaic tourist sites in Korea.
As Korean couples increasingly started to choose oversees resorts for their honeymoon during ‘90s, Jeju has gradually lost its lure as the top destination. The rent-a-car boom compensated for the lost honeymoon traffic to a degree, as other tourists started to drive around the island looking for some hidden wonders of Jeju.
Fortunate for Ms. Suh and her Jeju Olle team, however, Jeju’s tourism industry saw another revolutionary leap in the tourism infrastructure beginning mid 2000’s--budget airlines.
In the Seoul-Jeju route, long dominated by the duopoly of Korean Air and Asiana Air, Jeju Air and other no-frills airlines started to offer much cheaper tickets. The price of a return ticket from Seoul to Jeju has plummeted from as high as 200,000 won to 40,000 won (about US$40) within a year after they launched the service, crumbling down the psychological barriers to Jeju of ordinary flyers. Budget airlines made them to rethink about the nature of travel to Jeju: Jeju is no more a destination for honeymoon or once-in-a-life-time trip, but a scenic island handy for a snap weekend excursion.
Thanks to the blockbuster success of Olle trails, the number of annual visitors to Jeju has passed 5 million mark this October, a month ahead of the schedule, despite the growing fear about the global swine flu epidemic.
And Olle is wining the hearts of Jeju natives as well. Whereas traditional tourists spent their travel budget in the big name hotels and resorts owned mostly by mainlanders, the money Olle hikers are spending is literally trickling down to the bottom of Jeju.
Walking along the 15 Olle trail routs, hikers can easily spot ‘welcome’ signs posted by hundreds of local mom-and-pop stores and restaurants. For the first time in the history of Jeju tourism, tourists from the mainland are being truly welcomed by the Jeju natives.
Three years after she was first lured to Camino de Santiago, Ms. Suh is now dreaming of attracting pilgrims of the world to Jeju, making the island an Asian center of the global eco-tourism. Can it happen? Judging from the reaction of some expats communities in Korea, the answer seems to be 'yes, maybe.'
The question I want to ask Ms. Suh next time I meet her is this; what happened to Henney, the British girl who first inspired her to start the Olle exploration three years ago? Maybe she will have to invite Henney to Jeju sometime and walk the Olle trails together.
 | | | A typical sea-side Olle trail near Mt. Song-ak | | | ©2009 Jean K. Min | |
 | | | Mt. Halla and other sub volcanic mountains towering over Jeju island | | | ©2009 Jean K. Min | |
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| *For more musing on Korean tech issues and memosphere please visit my blog; Planet Size Brain (link: http://planetsizebrain.tistory.com) |
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2009/10/27 오후 10:43 |
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