Vietnamese travel firms concerned over S.Korea’s possible stricter visa policies
Sunday, October 30, 2022, 09:05 GMT+7
Many local travel companies have voiced their concern over possible difficulties in applying for visas to South Korea in the coming time.
At present, tours to South Korea’s Gangwon Province are suspended, while those to other parts of the Northeast Asian country are operated as normal.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) in Vietnam, Vietnamese tourists can still fly to Gangwon Province’s Yangyang County without visas on charter flights.
However, to ensure that their tours are smooth, tourists should apply for visas.
More requirements for visa application
Tran Thanh Vu, general director of local travel firm Vinagroup, said the group’s tours to South Korea are run as normal but visa application procedures are more complicated. Tourists are required to submit more documents.
Despite the smooth visa application of tourists taking tours to South Korea in October, Vu expressed his concern over the possibility of South Korea’s visa policy tightening in the upcoming periods.
“Required documents for the application of visas to South Korea include labor contracts and social insurance books. Tourists without household books registered in large cities need to prove their financial capacity through savings books worth at least VND100 million [US$4,031]," Vu said.
“My group’s staff will have to check customers’ documents carefully to detect their booking tours for other purposes."
A representative of TST Tourist Company said from October 21 to 25, the company ran a tour to South Korea and its customers followed the schedule.
“In addition to developing a checking process, enterprises should refuse ineligible customers,” the representative said.
According to Tran Phuong Linh, director of marketing and information technology at Benthanh Tourist, the company’s tours to South Korea are being operated as planned.
Most of Benthanh Tourist’s customers have high incomes and are able to prove their financial capacity.
“However, if South Korea tightens its visa policies, tourists may no longer be interested in tours to this country,” Linh shared.
Revision of travel companies’ quality needed
According to the KTO in Vietnam, there are two visa-free tourism products for Vietnamese visitors entering South Korea through Yangyang International Airport.
While Vietnamese travelers’ registration for visa-free tours to Yangyang is suspended until October 31, Vietnamese visitors can fly to Yangyang on charter flights.
However, the KTO in Vietnam advised Vietnamese tourists to apply for visas.
Regarding the case in which more than 100 Vietnamese citizens could not be contacted after their entry into South Korea as tourists, a representative of a travel company whose more than 30 visitors took the same charter flight as the aforesaid citizens, said that the case has adversely affected the tourism cooperation between the two countries.
“The case shows the poor quality of travel companies after the [COVID-19] pandemic. The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism should early review its licensing process and travel companies’ operation," the representative added.
“Companies operating in line with the law have their own ways to minimize risks."
Travelers wishing to visit South Korea should buy tours from prestigious travel companies to avoid joining tourists with different purposes, according to local travel companies.
“If they book the same tours as those with visa or immigration problems, their tour schedule may be changed continuously, not to mention other issues arising during the local police’s investigations," said the director of a Vietnamese travel company.
More than 70,000 Vietnamese illegally enter South Korea
As of 2021, Thai citizens accounted for the highest number of undocumented immigrants in South Korea with over 142,000 people, followed by Vietnamese with 70,000 people, according to the latest statistics from the South Korean Ministry of Justice.
Weekly Chosun magazine on Thursday shared the view that many Vietnamese people are illegally staying in South Korea to earn their living.
The case in which over 100 Vietnamese went missing after they entered Yangyang International Airport in South Korea’s Gangwon Province has made headlines. This is not the first time foreigners, including Vietnamese, have enigmatically gone missing after entry into the Northeast Asian country.
In December 2019, the Korea Immigration Service and the South Korean Ministry of Education launched an investigation into the missing for 15 days of 164 foreign students, including 160 Vietnamese students, of the Incheon National University.
Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, an overseas Vietnamese student who has returned to Hanoi after two years of studying the Korean language at a university in Gyeonggi Province, told Weekly Chosun that many of her classmates dropped out of the university to find jobs.
“Although their initial purpose is to learn the language, many Vietnamese people give up their learning opportunities to seek jobs and earn money as incomes there are much higher than the levels in Vietnam,” Ngan explained.
B., a South Korean student in Ho Chi Minh City, said that the Vietnamese community is one of the largest expat communities in South Korea. Therefore, the control of their entry into the country is not easy.
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