The survey, conducted by the Ho Chi Minh City-based market research firm Q&Me in March with 1,200 adults, showed that 20 percent of the respondents chose South Korea as their favorite country to visit, with Japan topping the list of favorite countries at 24 percent.

In the survey, however, 23 percent of all the female respondents said they prefer to visit South Korea, making the East Asian country their most favorite destination. Nineteen percent of the female respondents opted for Japan, which came in second place.

Among the male respondents, Japan was the top destination at 32 percent, compared with South Korea at 15 percent, the survey said.

It also revealed the choice of tourist destinations by Vietnamese people are influenced by landscape at 48 percent, culture at 43 percent, food at 25 percent and entertainment at 15 percent.

Vietnamese people got information on the places they want to visit mostly through friends, Facebook and websites.

Citing a report by global market research firm Euromonitor in 2017, the Vietnamese newspaper VN Express said outbound trips from Vietnam grew at an annual rate of 10-15 percent a year in the 2012-2017 period.

The number of Vietnamese tourists to South Korea came to 457,000 last year, up 41 percent from 2017.

VNF ( Yonhap )