The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has called on travel firms to carefully screen guests joining their outbound tours after several dozen Vietnamese tourists went missing shortly after their visa-free arrival on the South Korean island of Jeju.
The whereabouts of 33 of 163 Vietnamese tourists in a January 12-17 package tour to Jeju Island remain unknown.
Nguyen Quy Phuong, head of the Travel Department at VNAT, said only 130 of 163 passengers of a chartered flight arranged by tourism services firms in Hanoi returned home after the tour ended Sunday while the others are still missing.
The Vietnamese tourists arrived in Jeju on the chartered flight arranged by The Gioi Moi International Travel and Trade Joint Stock Company (JTC), Hanoiredtours JTC, Vietnam Tourism and Sport Co. Ltd., and Hoang Viet Tourism, Transport & Investment JSC.
Among the passengers on board the chartered flight were a number of South Korean tourism people.
The authorities of South Korea found 26 of 59 Vietnamese tourists who went missing at the end of the tour and forced them to come back to Vietnam together with the others on the flight back to Hanoi after they were questioned.
Phuong told the Daily that another 10 people were reportedly found on January 18 but the information had not yet been verified.
According to Phuong, representatives of the four companies on January 18 provided information for the department. However, the local authorities are still working with the parties concerned before making a final decision.
He said the local travel firms that arranged the Jeju tour are well-known, and warned the incident could lead South Korean authorities to impose stricter immigration rules on Vietnamese tourists.
Earlier, Jeju authorities imposed tight controls on visitors coming from Vietnam because some people attempted to get away.
Following the latest disappearance of the Vietnamese tourists in Jeju, VNAT told the four companies to report and urged all travel firms to do careful background checks on those guests who buy foreign tours.
VNAT said the missing tourists on Jeju infringed Vietnamese and Korean laws, and did harm to the image of the Vietnamese in foreign countries.
Therefore, these four companies were required to report and take responsibility.
VNAT might suspend these four tour operators or revoke their licenses for outbound tours.
About 170,000 Vietnamese tourists visited South Korea last year.
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