Hong Kong-listed casino operator Landing International Development Ltd. is now wooing tourists from nearby regional markets as the number of Chinese tourists thins due to the on-going political row between Seoul and Beijing.

South China Morning Post reported that Landing’s marketing strategy now focuses on luring tourists from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia to visit its casinos in the holiday island of Jeju, South Korea.

The move, according to Landing COO Jay Lee Poh Yee, will serve as buffer to the downturn of Chinese tourists going to its foreigner’s only Jeju Shinhwa World resort.

It would be recalled that Beijing barred mainland tourist groups from visiting South Korea as what analysts described as an “escalating economic retaliation” against the deployment of a U.S. missile system on South Korean territory.