Vietnam, one of the 20 best travel destinations in 2007, welcomed 3.2 million international tourists in the first nine months of this year, posting an on-year increase of 18 per cent, the National Administration of Tourism said.
Most of the tourists were from countries and territories that are renowned for high consumer spending levels such as Hong Kong - up 31 per cent; Japan, 14 per cent; South Korea, 22 per cent; Russia, 60 per cent; France, 40 per cent, and the Netherlands, 42 per cent.
Notably, tourists from ASEAN countries were on the rise as Indonesian, Singaporean, Thai and Malaysian arrivals surged by between 12 per cent and 61 per cent.
China remained its position as largest tourism market of Vietnam in the January-September period with more than 422,900, up 0.7 per cent on-year, the GSO said, attributing the rise to the two countries’ efforts to speed up bilateral tourism ties in recent times.
The runners-up were South Korea with 372,680, up 21.7 per cent, the U.S. with 323,700, up 11 per cent and Japan with 305,000, up 10 per cent.
Top visitor markets of Vietnam with the strongest year-on-year growth during the reviewed period were Malaysia (57.5 per cent), Russia (57 per cent) and Italy (51.7 per cent).
Especially, Vietnam for the first time removed China out of the fall list after a rather long time when it announced three markets registering the on-year fall in the first nine months of the year namely Cambodia, Laos, and Norway. Among the three, Laos dropped most with an on-year decrease of 15.1 per cent, followed by Norway, 11 per cent and Cambodia, 8.7 per cent.
Vietnam also witnessed growth in three groups of international arrivals, including those flocking to the nation for doing businesses, visiting relatives, and for holidays during the reviewed time.
Of them, visitors coming to the communist country for holiday registered the highest rate, at 28.9 per cent. The followings were those arriving for business, at 14.2 per cent and for visiting relatives, 40.5 per cent
However, the number of vacationers to the country for other purposes still fell, posting an on-year down of 0.9 per cent.
In September, Vietnam welcomed 358,000 foreign tourists. China, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan remained the biggest markets of the country in the month.
The increase has pushed room occupancy in key tourist sites up to 70 per cent during the period, while 4-5 star hotels in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang reported having between 90-100 per cent of their rooms booked.
The number of domestic tourists going abroad to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and China also was on the rise in the nine-month span, the GSO added.
Local travel businesses expect that outbound tours will swell in number as a number of foreign airways continue to offer budget services from Vietnam.
Vietnam is looking to up to 4.4 million foreign visitors and 19-20 million domestic tourists with total revenue of VND56 trillion, or US$3.5 billion this year. (GSO, Vietnam & World Economy)
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