Competitive Advantage of Jeju Free International City as A Foreign Direct Investment Destination Competitive Advantage of Jeju Free International City as A Foreign Direct Investment Destination

Abstract

Purpose: This study attempts to find an answer to the question “Why isn’t there enough foreign direct investment (FDI) on Jeju Island?” Although the local and central governments have been trying to attract more FDI to Jeju by introducing incentives and providing an investment-friendly environment since the Jeju Free International City (JFIC) Project started, there has not been a sufficient response so far. Research Design, Data, and Methodology: The Delphi Method is employed to analyze the competitive advantage of JFIC in terms of the determinants of locating FDI. The attractiveness of JFIC is assessed by 2-round questionnaires (N=20) and SPSS 20.0 is used for analysis. Results: The results show that the competitive advantage of JFIC is not very strong. The mean value of the integrated competitive advantage of JFIC is 3.56 against a possible maximum of 5.00. The Delphi results indicate that the competitive advantage in the tourism sector is stronger than the non-tourism sector. Conclusions: This paper may provide useful information to select ‘a choice and concentration’ strategy. This means that they can find out which factors of the determinants should be improved to make a targeted industry attractive, or they can choose an industry sector with a relatively strong competitive advantage instead.