Vietnam, the sunny and warm nation in the Southeast Asian region, has welcomed more than one million international tourists in the first quarter of this year, marking a 15 percent increase over the same period last year.
In March alone, the communist country received as many as 330,000 foreigners, up 15 per cent on-year.
The increase was allegedly attributed to a boom in tourism markets such as Russia, the US, South Korea, and Australia. Among the listed markets, Russia posting the highest rise with 70 per cent. The runner-ups were the US with 40 per cent, the Republic of Korea with 53 per cent, and Australia with 40 per cent.
However, during the period, Vietnam saw a decrease in number of tourists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, an official from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said, blaming the fall on the Tet celebration in countries such as China and Taiwan.
Currently, the occupancy rate at hotels reaches over 65 per cent. Many four- and five-star hotels in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the southern Nha Trang City reported an occupancy rate of more than 90 per cent.
Vietnam is striving to raise the quality of hotel rooms, and tourism services to lure foreign visitors, the official said, revealing that the VNAT has decided to invest US$1.5 billion into upgrading tourism infrastructure in the 2006-2010 period.
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.
This year, the VNAT 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.
T.V
Vietnamese
