Vietnam has become an important tourist market of the South Korea with nearly 3.5 million Korean people visiting the Southeast Asian country in 2018. the Korea Tourism Organisation in Vietnam (KTO Vietnam) reports.
According to Park Jong-sun, head of KTO Vietnam, Vietnam’s well-known tourist sites, such as Ha Long, Hanoi, Da Nang, Hoi An and Phu Quoc, are much favoured by the RoK people, particularly middle-aged tourists.
Last year, the country welcomed approximately 3.5 million Korean visitors (22.58% of the total international arrivals to the Vietnam), up 44.3% against 2017 and ranking second among the markets bringing tourists to Vietnam.
In the first two months of 2019, South Korean tourist arrivals to Vietnam reached more than 772,000, an annual increase of 24.6%, said Ha Van Sieu, deputy head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).
South Korean visitors to Vietnam booming
The South Korea has been identified as one of the key tourist markets of Vietnamese tourism, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has been coordinating with the parties concerned to organise Vietnamese culture and tourism promotion activities in the South Korea.
In late January 2019, the VNAT signed a cooperation deal with the Vietnamese Tourism Ambassador to the Korean, which aims to strengthen the role and support of the ambassador in Vietnam’s tourism promotion activities in the country.
In addition, the KTO reported that nearly 500,000 Vietnamese tourists chose the Korea as their destination in 2018, surging by 41% compared to the previous year. So far this year, the South Korean Government has been implementing many measures seeking to attract more Vietnamese tourists to the country.
From February to May 2019, the KTO has organized a campaign advertising RoK spring tourism under the theme “Spring tourism in the South Korea – Feel the difference”, with the participation of 14 leading Vietnamese travel companies.
The campaign aims to introduce new and different destinations in the journey of exploring the South Korean spring to Vietnamese tourists.