With the Republic of Korea (RoK) forecast to be the largest source of foreign visitors to Việt Nam during the Tết (Lunar New Year) holidays, many travel companies and tourist attractions have launched new products to meet demand.
Data from online travel platform Agoda showed that Việt Nam is one of the five most favourite destinations of international tourists for Tết. The leading sources of travellers during this occasion will be the RoK, Singapore, China, Hong Kong (China), and Japan.
Major travel companies in the RoK such as HantaTour, Very Good Travel and Kyowon Tour Travel Easy reported that the number of Korean tourists booking Tếttours has increased about 50 per cent year-on-year, and Phú Quốc island of Việt Nam is among the most attractive destinations for them during the approaching holidays.
Grasping the taste of holidaymakers from the RoK, many tourism firms and attractions have also rolled out the red carpet with various interesting products.
Thái Phương Hoa, General Director of Sun World – the entertainment brand of Sun Group, told the Lao Động (Labour) daily that the company has introduced a wide range of novel experiences in Phú Quốc such as Cầu Hôn (Kiss Bridge), a night market, and a multimedia show named “Kiss of the Sea” with fireworks all year round.
Hoa believed that Korean tourists would love these activities.
In 2023, nearly 3.6 million visitors from the RoK chose Việt Nam as their holiday destination, becoming the biggest source of international tourists in the Southeast Asian nation. Việt Nam’s visa exemption policy was considered a plus of its attractiveness to Korean travellers.
Chairwoman of HanaTour, Song Mi-sun, said her company would strive to help raise the number of Korean visitors to Việt Nam this year to six million. Apart from popular destinations for Koreans, it would open tours to other places like Sa Pa township in the northern province of Lào Cai.
In addition to coastal cities such as Đà Nẵng, Nha Trang and Phú Quốc, tourists from the Northeast Asian country are now also choosing mountainous areas of Việt Nam to explore, particularly Sa Pa.
Yong Sung-ok, head of the Southeast Asian division at HanaTour, noted Việt Nam had become a popular destination and the most searched one among Korean travellers in the recent past.
Despite prolonged economic recession impacts, Koreans are currently ready to spend big on luxury seats on flights.
Việt Nam was the destination with the biggest volume of business class tickets purchased by Korean passengers in 2023, according to statistics about last year’s flight ticket revenue in the RoK released by the country’s biggest e-marketplace Gmarket. — VNS
