Tag Archives: Korea

“India holds a special place in Korea’s strategic outreach. Building on incredible success of 1.2 lakh Indian visitors in 2023, we are setting an ambitious goal of welcoming 2 lakh travellers from India in 2024,” said Myong Kil Yun, Regional Director, India & SAARC, Korea Tourism Organization (KTO).

Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) India launches K-incentive scheme to boost sales of Korea travel packages in 2023. Aimed at travel agents in India, the scheme celebrates the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Korea. 

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) will conduct a destination presentation on Friday, September 4 at 11am that will have a special focus on the Gyeonggi region. Along with KTO, the webinar will also have representatives from Gyeonggi Tourism Organization and a DMC joining in from Korea for product updates. Young Geul Choi, Deputy Director, Korea Tourism Organization, New Delhi office, says, “Each region of South Korea has its own unique feature and characteristic. To bring a better understanding of each special region, we decided to conduct a destination presentation with a special focus on the Gyeonggi region, located close to Seoul. A trip to Seoul without a trip to the nearby Gyeonggi region would surely be incomplete. Gyeonggi province is home to landmark attractions like the DMZ, Everland theme park and Hwaseong Fortress among others. With this webinar, travel agents can add more value to their South Korea itineraries tours and recommend it as the first choice once travel between India and South Korea resumes.” To sign up, contact Jaspreet Kaur on 9650196532 or jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com.

As physical distancing continues to be a norm, South Korea is making health safety its top priority. It is promoting its Hanok – a traditional house accommodation – as a preferred choice of stay for visitors since it ensures a secluded stay with minimal interaction with service staff and other guests. A Hanok also lends an authentic Korean experience with thorough privacy for tourists.

Thai Airways will operate triple daily making a total of 21 flights a week from Delhi to Bangkok and beyond. The additional day flights starting from February 3, 2019 will offer more options to passengers travelling to destinations within Thailand (Phuket and Chiang-Mai), Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mainland China, Australia and New Zealand. Increase in services to Bangkok will enable the airline to capitalise on the steadily growing round-the-year demand on the highly popular sector, offering guests greater flexibility and choice throughout the day, and helping create a far superior and well-differentiated travel experience for them. Thamanoon Kuprasert, General Manager – India, Thai Airways, said, “Being the first service provider to Thailand from Delhi, Thai Airways has sustained itself successfully in Delhi since 1969 by offering world-class reliable services to passengers for Thailand, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is our endeavour to ensure that our passengers enjoy a comfortable and happy journey on THAI. We are constantly improvising as per customers’ expectations.”

Vietnam’s low-cost airline, VietjetAir has appointed Bird Travels as its GSA in India. Vietjet has been expanding its flight network in Vietnam and will continue to spread its wings to new destinations in the Asia Pacific region and around the world. Vietjet’s flight network covers Vietnam extensively and includes connections to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Myanmar and eight destinations in China. It is operating a fleet of A320s and A321s having an average age of 3.3 years.

Korea now ranks in the number one spot worldwide for global congresses hosted in 2016, according to the latest International Meetings Statistics Report released by the Union of International Associations (UIA). The result is a reflection of strong growth by established Korean meeting cities such as Seoul, as well as rising destinations like Busan, Jeju, and Incheon, contributing to the country’s increasingly diverse business events portfolio. Supporting this growth is the Korea MICE Expo that is jointly organised by the Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) along with its 11 Regional Convention Bureaus. The nation recently concluded the 18th edition of Korea MICE Expo 2017, its leading business events trade show that brought together 250 businesses and more than 300 buyers from around the world, including India. The expo showcased their MICE products in a two-day expo at Incheon’s Songdo Convensia between 15-16 June, 2017 that recorded a total of 3,000 attendees. This reflected a 21.6 per cent increase in attendance over the previous year. Kapsoo Kim, Executive Director, Korea MICE Bureau, says, “These latest findings are a strong reflection of Korea’s broad growth not only across the country’s meetings section, but across the country itself. Established event destinations like Seoul are continuing to show their prowess, while an increasing number of regional capitals are giving global meetings planners an increasing variety of options, and so boosting Korea’s appeal for congresses.” The findings show Korea as a country rising from 891 meetings in 2015 to 997 in 2016, reflecting almost a 12 per cent increase over the previous year. Making up the national equation, Seoul, maintained its third place city ranking and hosted 526 meetings in 2016, up from 494 in 2015. …

Flight Shop, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of FCTG, Australia, has announced a joint-partnership with Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) and Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) to offer combined holiday packages to the discerning Indian traveller. As both tourism boards come together for the first time, the collaboration intends to strengthen mutual relationships and expand their presence in the Indian market. Commenting on the collaboration, Shravan Gupta, Executive Director – Leisure Businesses, FCM Travel Solutions India, said, “We are extremely delighted to have collaborated with Japan and Korea Tourism boards in India. As a first-of-its-kind, the partnership aligns with our commitment to offer unbeatable escapades to our customers. The popularity of these destinations amongst Indian travellers has driven us to create the finest itineraries with exciting opportunities and unforgettable lifetime experiences. As key long haul destinations, Japan and South Korea have witnessed a robust growth of 30% in Indian outbound travelers; the joint collaboration aims to double this growth over the next few years. As both destinations bet high on India, we will focus primarily on key and emerging metros.” Byungsun Lee, Director, Korea Tourism Organization, said, “We are elated to collaborate with Flight Shop and Japan Tourism Board to promote Far-East in India as we strongly believe that the Korea-Japan combination holiday is a star-offering for Indian market this summer season. Carriers in India (Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Japan Airways, All Nippon Airways) offer excellent connectivity to both the counties with bare minimum connecting times. Together, South Korea and Japan combined will offer an unmatched experience to Indian travellers, especially to families with theme parks, shopping, etc. as the focus themes.” Kenichi Takano, Executive Director, Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO) said, “Japan is a destination for …

Sabre Corporation and Air Seoul, Korea’s newest low-cost carrier (LCC) under the Kumho Asiana Group, have signed a multi-year global distribution agreement making Air Seoul content available to travel agents via a Global Distribution System (GDS) for the first time. The agreement between Air Seoul and Sabre will give 425,000 Sabre-connected travel agents access to even more low-cost flights and fares in the Sabre Travel Marketplace, which now includes content from over 100 LCCs globally. Air Seoul launched earlier this year, commencing domestic flights between Gimpo and Jeju in July. Last month it began its international operations, adding routes to Japan and Cambodia. “Gaining access to Sabre’s extensive network of travel buyers is a key component in our growth strategy and particularly important as we expand our operations internationally,” said Ryu Gwang-hee, president of Air Seoul. “Sabre has a vast global network of agencies using its travel marketplace which it pairs with a unique and very local approach to doing business with airlines in Asia Pacific – meaning we get the tailored support we need to market and sell our services effectively as we expand our network.” “We have a rapidly expanding portfolio of low-cost carriers distributing their fares through Sabre, making us a global leader in this area. But really importantly we’re pairing this rich content with a continued investment in technology innovation, which has allowed us to develop more advanced low fare shopping tools that help travel agents find the most relevant travel options for their customer, quickly and reliably – driving revenues for both the agent and the airline,” commented Roshan Mendis, senior vice president of Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific.

Malaysia Airlines has revamped its Business Class seats on its A330 aircraft which flies to destinations in New Zealand, Japan, Korea, China, and India. The Business Class seat comes with a 43-inch seat pitch that converts into a fully flat 76-inch bed. It comes with 90 per cent more working space, extra stowage for personal items and the majority of seats have direct aisle access due to the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2 seat layout. Each seat is equipped with a 16-inch touch screen in-flight entertainment system. Paul Simmons, Chief Commercial Officer, Malaysia Airlines, said, “The introduction of the A330 Business Class seat will make us more competitive against other full-service carriers and is part of our push to make Malaysia Airlines the preferred carrier to, from and around Malaysia. This is the start of an exciting roll-out of new, innovative and personalised products and services that we can’t wait to share with our guests.” Business Class passengers can also take advantage of Malaysia Airlines’ award winning satay stick appetizers served with delicious peanut sauce in flight or the ‘Chef-on-Call’ dining service, providing advance meal selection from 25 options consisting of Malaysian specialities, chef specials and healthy choice dishes, with advance booking.