Never been there myself, but if I get the chance I suppose I might go.
In 2009 the number of visitors to our land, Dokdo, reached the historical record of over 132,000.
According to the Dokdo management office (독도관리사무소) and the Ulleung-do government on the 3rd, excepting the months of January and December when there were no tours, 132,558 tourists traveled to Dokdo over the past year by either boat or plane, an increase of over 4,000 from the 128,552 who did so in 2008.
It began with 251 in February, then 6,099 in March, 14,631 in April, 25,626 in May — the most popular month — 17,960 in June and 14,582 in July.
But in August, the vacation season, there were 23,212, then decreasing to 14,587 in September and 12,140 in October until reaching 3,470 in November, the beginning of winter.
105,880 of those visitors made a landing by boat, while 26,678 were limited by inclement weather or other causes to making an aerial survey only.
The increase in visitors is due to increasing interest in Dokdo as a result of continuing Japanese provocations regarding Dokdo and represents an increase of 1,880 persons per day since 2007.
Dokdo saw visitors increase from 41,134 in 2005 to 78,152 in 2006 and 101,428 in 2007 after the landing permission system was changed, showing an increasing trend each year.
Visits by helicopter, coast guard ship, and other means totaled 1,126 in 2005, 1,297 in 2006, 1,297 in 2007, 1,178 last year, and 2,714 this year.
A member of the Ulleung-do government said, “when visitors to Dokdo increase so do visitors to Ulleung-do, so it is very helpful for our economy… In the future we plan to make every effort to make visiting Ulleung-do and Dokdo easy and safe.”
