Philippines and South Korea renew tourism cooperation programme

The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) and Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism recently renewed their existing tourism cooperation programme at a signing ceremony in Manila.

The parties signed off on the implementation program of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Tourism Cooperation for 2024-2029 on Monday, 7th October.

DOT secretary Christina Frasco and Korean minister of culture, sports, and tourism Yu In-chon signed and exchanged documents before Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jnr and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at Malacañan Palace.

What is covered under the programme?

The implementation programme for 2024-2029 continues and expands the bilateral tourism cooperation programme covered by a previous understanding ratified in 2006.

Under this renewed agreement, both countries agreed to exchange tourism professionals and administrators to strengthen mutual development and competency in the fields of hotels, resorts, cruises, ports, tourism products, and other related industries.

Both parties also hope to exchange information on tourism development; and strengthen tourism safety by establishing and improving safety cooperation mechanisms through information sharing and contingency coordination.

Likewise, joint promotion and marketing initiatives will help increase the overall number of tourist traffic; enable both parties to participate in training and exchange; support each other’s tourism fairs, exhibitions, and other promotional initiatives; and encourage tourism investment.

Enhanced bilateral relations

Frasco said the programme would enhance the relations between the Philippines and South Korea in tourism and people-to-people exchanges.

The tourism secretary said: “We anticipate this will increase demand for more Philippine destinations and tourism products from our number one source market, South Korea, and provide more opportunities for the economic advancement of our people, with the expected growth in our tourism numbers.”

To date, South Korea tops the list of international visitor arrivals to the country which accounts for 27.16 percent of total foreign tourist arrivals.

Since January this year, a total of 1,230,858 visitors from Korea have arrived in the Philippines.