Online Travel Vietnam: A number of South Korean travel firms are planning to tap the growing potential of meditours, a type of package tours that includes sightseeing trips and healthcare services, for Vietnamese tourists next year.

The companies’ representative offices in Vietnam will play the intermediary role to help the locals search for doctors and hospitals in South Korea according to the customers’ healthcare demands,The Saigon Times Daily reported.

It is the firms’ response to the growing trend of Vietnamese booking tours to South Korea for beauty care services, plastic surgery, treatment for illness which often requires long-term therapeutic methods in oriental and western medicine.

“We will open two representative offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi next month to offer meditours,” Bui Quang Hung, office manager of Intermedical Travel Co., Ltd, said.

Hung said the firm would conduct health check and diagnosis on its customers in Vietnamese clinic or by doctors working for the office before sending their clients to the East Asian country.

Choi Sung Mi, chief manager of marketing at the EZMeditour Co., Ltd, which now has an office in HCMC’s District 1 said South Korea currently had some dozens firms offering meditours for foreign clients, mostly of whom were from China and the U.S.

The one-year-old firm has so far welcomed more than 200 travelers coming to South Korea for health treatment.

“We are looking for partners who are Vietnamese travel firms to expand meditours to meet the demand of Vietnamese who seek trips to South Korea for health care and beauty care services,” she said.

Meditour often include visa, flights, hospital reservation, medical exams and treatment as well as interpreters during the guests’ stay.

The tour prices depend on the travelers’ health conditions and their stay period in South Korea.

Hung said the tours could cost more than US$1,100 each person a week for travel fees alone.

Chief manager Choi also estimated the package tours which include facial plastic surgery cost about $4,000 each person a week.

South Korea’s tourism sector is focusing on Vietnam as a potential growth market, according to the country’s tourism officials.

Some South Korean travel firms are offering Vietnamese tourists sightseeing tours to Korean film studios and tours which include beauty care services.

The East Asian country welcomed some 18,000 Vietnamese tourist arrivals and about 20,000 Korean visited Vietnam last year.

Source; Compiled by Hong Nguyen/VietNews