Vietnam welcomed only 96,275 Chinese tourists in the first two months of this year, down by roughly 32 per cent against that of the same period last year, allegedly due to China’s policy to limit traveling cross Vietnam’s border.
During the period, China posted the highest fall among Vietnam's 31 listed markets. Followed by Hong Kong, Italy, and the Philippines, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
Unofficial sources attributed the drop in the influx of tourists from China to the northern country’s policy on limiting cross-border travel to curb the number of Chinese people gambling in Vietnam.
However, in the last two months, China still remained Vietnam’s number one tourism market. The runners up were: the US with 83,295, up 31.8 per cent, South Korea with 80,900 vacationers, up 57 per cent, and Japan with 58,590, up 29.1 per cent, in comparison with figures from the same period last year.
Notably, the GSO revealed that the total number of arrivals from China increased by 8.4 per cent in February, an official from the Vietnamese National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said, revealing that the country estimated to receive more than 673,000 foreign tourists in January-February period, up 15 per cent on-year.
In 2005, Vietnam saw around 3.34 million foreign tourists and 15 million domestic tourists, up 18.4 per cent and 7.6 per cent on-year respectively, earning revenue of VND30 trillion (US$1.91 billion), up 14 per cent from the year 2004.
The communist country has set a target to host as many as 20.9 million tourists. Of them, 3.9 million are predicted to be foreign arrivals, with the remaining 17 million being domestic vacationers, an on-year increase of 14 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively.
Labour, GSO
Vietnamese
