DPRK expects to greet 3,000 Vietnamese travelers in 2019
Saturday, 30/03/2019 11:25 (GMT+7)
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) always considers Vietnam a potential tourism market and expects to greet about 3,000 travelers from the market in 2019, a ten-fold increase from 2018, said Mr. Ham Jin, General Director of the Korea International Travel Company, in a press conference on March 28th.
A delegation of Vietnamese travelers during their tour to DPRK . (Photo: Cong Thuong News)
The move is part of the Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM) held from March 27th-30th, in Hanoi. This is the first time DPRK joined the biggest travel fair in Vietnam.
He said in recent years, DPRK tourism saw significant growth with many resorts built and a more open policy of attracting tourists, contributing to increasing the number of travelers to the country, especially those from Asia, the Middle East and the US.
At the DPRK, the Korea International Travel Company is the biggest state-run company directly managed by the Korean Tourism Administration. In addition, the country has about 10 travel companies with each locality owning one or two companies.
For visa policy, Mr. Ham Jin said the granting of visas to the DPRK is not complicated; tourists can apply for visas at the Embassy of DPRK in Hanoi and they will be granted after three to five days.
The country hopes it can build a tour by train, copying the route that President Kim Jong-un arrived in Lang Son in late February to join the second DPRK-US summit. “If both the DPRK and Vietnam can realize this ideal, this will be a historic tour,” Ham Jim stressed.
At the event, a cooperative deal was signed between the Korean International Travel Company and the Vietnam Society of Travel Agents./.
BTA