Concerns about traditional customer market from East Asia

Korean passengers check in at Phu Bai International Airport

Worry

Although Hue tourism is on the rise in terms of visitor numbers, the tourist market to Hue has recently undergone notable fluctuations.

According to data from the Hue City Tourism and Tourism Services Development Project for the period 2025 - 2030, with a vision to 2045, while some visitor markets showed signs of increasing in 2024 compared to the previous year, such as: Italian visitors increased by 114%; Spanish increased by 62%; French increased by 57%, German increased by 54%... Japanese and Korean visitor markets were outside the top 10 visitors to Hue, significantly decreasing compared to recent years.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in the period of 2017 - 2019, Korea was always the market with the largest international visitor market share in Hue. Typically, in 2019, the total number of international visitors to Hue reached more than 2,186 million, with Korean tourists leading the visitor markets that year, accounting for 19.9%.

In the past three years, the market share of Korean visitors to Hue has not been too high. If in 2022, the market of Korean visitors to Hue reached 9,258 arrivals (accounting for 5%), then in the next two years, this number will be 20,912 arrivals (accounting for 3.9%) in 2023 and 18,895 arrivals (accounting for 3.1%) in 2024. According to a survey from the Department of Tourism Planning and Development (Department of Tourism), in the first 6 months of 2025, the number of Korean visitors to Hue decreased. The top 10 international markets with the leading number of visitors to Hue in the first 6 months of 2025 do not include the name of the land of Kim Chi.

Regarding Japanese visitors, although statistics show that in the past 3 years, Japanese visitors have shown signs of increasing, they have not yet gained the same attraction as before - which is Hue's traditional tourist market. In 2022, the number of Japanese visitors to Hue was 2,891 (accounting for 1.6%). This number in the next 2 years was 9,060 (accounting for 1.7%) and 13,346 (accounting for 2.2%). The fact that Japan is no longer in the top 10 tourist markets to Hue is something worth pondering.

Previously, Hue was one of the favorite destinations in Vietnam for Japanese tourists. The number of Japanese tourists to Vietnam in the period 2015 - 2019 increased rapidly, from 671,000 in 2015 to 952,000 in 2019, but the number of Japanese tourists to Hue during this period tended to decrease, from 33,187 in 2015 to 21,629 in 2019. In 2017, Japanese tourists ranked 8th in the top 10 international visitors to Hue, in 2018 it dropped to 11th and 13th in 2019. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Japanese tourists to Hue accounted for a low proportion, not commensurate with expectations.

Promote cooperation, improve product quality

In tourism development, each tourist market has its own cycles, stages of development and fluctuations. However, it cannot be denied that product factors and promotion and advertising have some impact on tourists' travel decisions.

Mr. Do Ngoc Co, Chairman of Hue City Tourism Association, said that in the past, Korean tourists arriving via direct flights to Da Nang often visited and experienced Hue tourism. However, there is currently a shift as visitors from this country are prioritizing Nha Trang and Phu Quoc. Partly because these localities have stepped up promotion and advertising.

Currently, Korean customers like to experience shopping services and unique experiences. They are willing to pay and pay high for dining, massage, spa services...; while these conditions in Hue are still modest, there are few high-class shopping centers, large-scale and high-quality spas. A fact is that customers today always want to explore new places. When there are not many new services that are attractive enough, customers will prioritize choosing other destinations.

Mr. Truong Thanh Minh, Director of the Tourism Promotion Information Center, said that Japanese tourists are often interested in historical and traditional cultural relics of Vietnam. The Japanese tourist market is specialized and requires high quality products and services. Market research and product improvement are necessary problems for Hue tourism if it wants to attract Japanese tourists to Hue.

Obviously, the attractive factors of history, cuisine, and culture of Hue are highly appreciated by Japanese and Korean tourists, but the factors of festivals/events, shopping conditions, and entertainment activities are still poor, combined with language barriers and other limitations that have reduced the attractiveness of the destination. To increase the ability to attract Japanese and Korean tourists, Hue needs to invest in developing shopping services, diversifying entertainment activities, strengthening the organization of events, improving the professionalism of tourism workers, improving foreign language skills for employees, and improving environmental sanitation to better meet the needs of tourists when coming to Hue.

Director of the Department of Tourism Tran Thi Hoai Tram said that Hue is promoting cooperation with foreign partners, especially Korean partners, in opening direct flights to facilitate tourists to and from Hue; introducing and promoting Hue tourism products. In addition, Hue also coordinates with other countries to cooperate, build products suitable to tastes and call for investment in infrastructure and tourism services to serve tourists.