Hydrophilic treatment of the packing materials in a cooling tower has been made by the ion assisted reaction (IAR) method to increase the wettability of the packing materials. The effects of hydrophilic treatment of packing materials on the performance of a cooling tower have been investigated in a wide range of operating parameters, such as water flow rate, air flow rate, and the water inlet temperature. A pilot cooling tower has been designed and built to model a counter-flow cooling tower. The results obtained indicate that the packing characteristic value with hydrophilic packing could be substantially increased by 6∼19.3% than that with conventional packing in the operating ranges considered. The correlations of the packing characteristic value as a function of water-to-air ratio are suggested for a counter-flow cooling tower with hydrophilic packing as well as with conventional packing.