Consumption Changes during COVID-19 through the Analysis of Credit Card Usage : Focused on Jeju Province

Purpose: This study is to analyze the changes of consumption patterns to diagnose the economic impacts on consumers’ market during COVID-19, and to suggest implications to overcome the new social and economic crisis of Jeju Island. Research design, data, and methodology: We collected a set of credit card transaction records issued by BC Card Company from merchants in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province for past 4 years from 2017 to 2020 from the Jeju Data Hub run by Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. The big data contains details of approved credit card transactions including the approval numbers, amount, locations and types of merchants, time and age of users, etc. The researchers summed up amount in monthly basis, transforming big data to small data to analyze the changes of consumption before and after COVID-19. Results: Sales fell sharply in transportation industries including airlines, and overall consumption by age group decreased while the decrease in consumption among the seniors was relatively small. The sales of Yeon-dong and Yongdam-dong in Jeju City also fell significantly compared to other regions. As a result of the paired t-test of all 73 samples in Jeju City, the p-value of the mean consumption of the credit card in 2019 and 2020 is significant, statistically proven that the total consumption amount in the two years is different. Conclusions: We found there are sensitive spots that can be strategically approached based on the changes in consumption patterns by industry, region, and age although most of companies and small businesses have been hit by COVID-19. It is necessary for local companies and for the government to be focusing their support on upgrading services, in order to prevent declining sales and job instability for their employees, creating strategies to retain jobs and prevent customer churn in the face of the crisis. As Jeju Province is highly dependent on the tertiary industry, including tourism, it is suggested to create various strategies to overcome the crisis of the pandemic by constantly monitoring the sales trends of local companies.