South Korea is stepping up its bid to attract more visitors from Southeast Asia, signing a series of travel and airline deals in Indonesia and the Philippines after a sharp rise in arrivals from the region.

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) announced on 9 November that its president, Park Sung-hyuk, led a sales mission to Jakarta and Manila from 3 to 7 November to build partnerships with local companies and expand the South Korean tourism market.

Demand from Southeast Asia is already climbing fast. According to KTO, 330,629 Indonesian visitors travelled to South Korea in the year to September, up 23.4 per cent on the same period last year. The Philippines recorded 615,141 visitors last year, the most of any Southeast Asian country, and arrivals have continued to grow by more than 15.6 per cent on the previous year as of September.

On 4 November, KTO signed a memorandum of understanding with Traveloka, a leading online travel agency in Southeast Asia. The two organisations plan to attract 300,000 tourists to South Korea over the next two years by using Traveloka's network across five countries, including Singapore and Malaysia.

Two days later, on 6 November, KTO signed an agreement with Cebu Pacific Air, a major low-cost carrier in the Philippines. The partnership will promote marketing linked to a large-scale K-pop concert scheduled for March next year in the Philippines, as well as encouraging individual travellers and activating routes to South Korea's regional airports.

KTO has also brought banks into the effort. It signed an agreement with Bank Central Asia, Indonesia's largest private bank, to promote travel to South Korea and offer payment benefits to cardholders. In the Philippines, it is working with BDO Unibank, the country's largest financial group, to market family-oriented travel to South Korea.

BDO is also taking part in a visa simplification programme promoted by the South Korean embassy in the Philippines and KTO, which is expected to lift demand by making travel easier and offering financial benefits.

The push follows a similar sales initiative in Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam in July. During that trip, KTO signed a memorandum of understanding with Singapore Airlines for joint marketing in the Southeast Asian market and agreed with Viettravel to attract 50,000 visitors to South Korea over the next two years.

Booking data from Traveloka underlines why South Korea is in focus. Its latest figures show Jeju standing out for travellers from Singapore, with flights to the island doubling, while Fukuoka has become a favourite for travellers from Indonesia, where flight bookings have risen by more than 20 per cent and hotel bookings by close to 75 per cent year on year. Hangzhou has captured the imagination of travellers from Vietnam.

President Park said the Southeast Asia sales initiative was significant because it connected close cooperation with local companies to real travel demand for South Korea. He said KTO would expand the scale of visitor numbers through diverse collaborations with global companies, including major airlines, while driving sustainable regional tourism and creating high-value demand.

The deals point to a broader strategy: rather than relying on Seoul alone, South Korea is promoting its regions, its islands and its cultural events, and leaning on airlines, travel platforms and banks in its fastest-growing nearby markets to turn interest into bookings.