"Cancellation of year-end reservations"...The restaurant street in Jeju is "Soulsang."

[Anchor]
In the aftermath of the impeachment following martial law, the restaurant industry is being hit hard in Jeju.

The difficulty is growing as year-end reservations have been canceled one after another amid the economic downturn.

I'm reporter Kim Jiwoo of KCTV Jeju Broadcasting.

[Reporter]
It is a meat restaurant located on a busy street in downtown Jeju.

The restaurant's reservations for six teams have been canceled in a row since the emergency martial law occurred.

As the atmosphere of refraining from dining out spreads due to the unstable domestic situation, there are no group reservations at the end of the year that came in at this time of the year.

As the year-end special, the biggest part of the restaurant industry, is on the verge of flying away, we are considering shortening business hours to save operating costs.

[Kim Dal-soon / Meat restaurant: But we do business after Christmas and the end of the year. But this year, it was cut off because of martial law. You can think of it as a total deficit this year. It's a total deficit....]

The situation is the same for a sushi restaurant located nearby.

Even so, while sales have fallen significantly due to the economic downturn, emergency martial law has occurred, and year-end parties and year-end gatherings are being canceled one after another.

The sigh is deepening as travel sentiment shrinks in the future, raising concerns about a decline in tourists, the main customer base.

[Ahn Mi-sook / Sashimi restaurant: It's so hard because the business is only a little in the early evening and it's so bad. So I don't know what to do with this, and it's so hard that I can't even pay the store tax properly. It's even harder (after martial law). There are no reservation customers, and the number of customers is decreasing as time goes by.]

The restaurant industry said consumer sentiment has been rapidly cooling since the emergency martial law, and feared that if the unstable situation drags on, the number of businesses that close down will inevitably increase.

[Kim Byung-hyo / President of Jeju-do branch of the Korean Dining Industry Association: It's a mess because there aren't any customers, but the reservation customers are all gone because of this (the martial law incident). I was thinking if it would get better after COVID-19, but this kind of result came out when it got better, so I have to deal with it quickly....]

Small business owners in the province initially predicted that the economic index would improve slightly to the late 70s this month due to the end of the year.

However, due to the unexpected martial law situation, the economic cold wave in the alley business area, including the restaurant industry, is getting fiercer than ever.

I'm Kim Jiwoo from KCTV News.