HA NOI (VNS)— The Korea Tourism Organisation has launched the Visit Korea 2013 Campaign to promote 2013 as the "Republic of Korea (RoK) Tourism Year" in Viet Nam.

The organisation has arranged a host of cultural and tourism activities since last week to promote famous tourism destinations in the RoK and encourage more Vietnamese people to visit the country.

"RoK and Viet Nam have many similarities in customs and culture. We will try our best to organise more cultural exchange programmes to make the image of our country more familiar to Vietnamese people," said Kang Sungghil, head of the organisation's Viet Nam representative office.

Those activities include a Mini Travel Mart, K-Pop showcase, sachoom (Korea's well-known non-verbal dance musical) show and the R16 B-boy dance contest which decides the best Vietnamese team to progress to the final round in South Korea.

The well-known girl band T-ara was chosen as the campaign's tourism ambassador. The band and other artists from the popular RoK TV game show, Let's Go Dream Team, took the stage at a K-Pop Showcase in Ha Noi last week.

The crew of the game show will also make a short film in Ha Noi this week to introduce beautiful Vietnamese landscapes to South Korean audiences. The film will be presented on South Korean television in April.

South Korea received more than 160,000 Vietnamese visitors in 2012. — VNS