South Korea has been chosen as the top tourist destination by Hong Kong citizens
largely thanks to the popularity of Korean culture, a survey showed
Monday.
In the survey by Hong Kong's popular leisure weekly magazine
Weekend, South Korea beat Japan and mainland China in terms of where respondents
would like to visit within the year.
This is the first time that South
Korea has ranked No. 1 in the 12 year-history of the annual survey.
The
survey was conducted on 93,000 citizens in the Chinese territory for three weeks
starting from Oct. 29.
South Korea's government agency the Korea
Tourism Organization has engaged in aggressive marketing using celebrities of
Korean TV series and of Korean pop singers popular in Hong Kong to lure
tourists.
Hong Kong's two major terrestrial broadcasters, TVB and ATV,
regularly air South Korean TV shows during prime time.
The Korea
Tourism Organization also publicized the country's four distinctive seasons,
which allow visitors to go maple leave viewing in the fall and go skiing in the
winter.
Boosted by these efforts, the number of Hong Kong visitors to
South Korea increased 28 percent on-year to 360,000 people.