In recent years, Korea has become one of the leading markets sending tourists to Vietnam. Attracting Korean tourists is one of the objectives of Vietnam’s tourism, under international tourist markets orientation in the Tourism Development Strategy for 2011-2020, vision 2030.
Because of similarities in culture, comprehensive cooperation in the field of economic and visa-exemption for 15 days for travellers holding ordinary passports as well as quality of products that attracts South Korean tourists, tourism cooperation between Vietnam and South Korea has been developing rapidly. Vietnam is becoming the destination attracting many tourists from Korea. Statistics show that the number of Korean tourists to Vietnam is increasing, many Korean tour operators have opened representative offices in Vietnam or linked directly with travel companies in Vietnam to directly send South Korean tourists to Vietnam.
Korea ranks second only to China with more than 100,782 arrivals as of November 2015, an increase of 1.35 percent compared to the same period of 2014.
According to Ha Van Sieu, Director of the Institute of Tourism Research and Development of Vietnam, Korean people have the habit of travelling all year, but they tend to travel more in January, July and August. Ha Long, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City are the favourite destinations of Korean tourists because of low cost and attractive tourist sites. The attractive products are scenic, historic sites, traditional culture, nature and the places of entertainment services.
Instead of travelling to one country, for many years, Koreans tend to travel to “two countries, one destination.” Except for a few high-income tourists who often prefer high-quality destination with great expense, most of tourists prefer travel to Vietnam and then Laos or Cambodia by road with the average cost. Korean youth tend to go on customized tour depended on cultural diversity.
Vietnam has not exploited full potential; the number of Korean tourists coming back for a second time is not high. Explaining the cause, Nguyen Van Tai, Director of Vietsense Travel, which has just signed a memorandum of understanding with a Korean enterprise, said that promotion activities are still limited, information about the places, landscapes, culture, people has not been spread to many visitors to South Korea. Additionally, the lack of tourism workforce who are fluent in Korean as well as existing restrictions impede promoting Korean tourists to Vietnam.
To solve the problem of promoting and ensuring the quality of tourism products to build Vietnam’s tourism brand as a good destination for South Korean visitors thereby boosting the demand for Vietnam’s tourism of Koreans and attract large tourist from South Korea, according to Pham Tien Dung, General Secretary of the Hanoi Travel Club and Director of Golden Tour and Convention, Vietnam needs to have a strategy in advertising and marketing specific sights in the mass media of South Korea. Vietnam also needs to promote cooperation between travel agencies of the two countries, connect travel agencies and tour operators two countries; promote fairs to introduce international tourism in Korea, and organize Famtrip programs to Vietnam for the Korean authorities and agencies. Also Vietnam focuses on investment in infrastructure, including transportation, accommodation, tourist transport, restaurants and tourist stops for Korean tourists.
Also, according to Mr Tai, to improve service quality to pick up Korean tourists to Vietnam, the tourism industry should develop and improve the quality of the workforce to serve the Korean market by using the South Korean people currently studying and working in Vietnam as translators and managers; found and run South Korean business club to pick up South Korean tourists; and inspect and serve Korean tourists.
Thu Huyen
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