Vietnam, which is home to five world tangible heritage sites, welcomed more than 1.8 million foreign tourists in the first half of this year, representing an on-year increase of 7 per cent, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
The GSO has, however, not made the total revenue of the hospitality sector during the period, an official from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said, attributing the timid rise to the World Cup which drew many travelers to stay glued to their TV sets to view football matches.
Among the 31 listed markets, China remained the number one market of Vietnam with more than 311,000 visitors in January-June, although the number of Chinese is down by 23.4 per cent against the same period of 2005, registering the first position among countries having declining figures of visitors to Vietnam.
South Korea and the US keep their second and third rankings with 207,890 and 199,700 vacationers respectively in the first six months of the year, posting respective increases 35.4 per cent and 19.7 per cent on year.
Unofficial sources attributed the consecutive drop in the influx of Chinese tourists in recent months to the country’s policy of limiting cross-border travel to curb the number of Chinese people gambling in Vietnam, and regulations to stop granting entry-exit visas for 14 countries sharing the borders with China.
In June alone, Vietnam greeted over 274,000 international visitors. Of those, Vietnam welcomes most vacationers from China with more than 46,180. The runners-up are the US with 37,000 and Japan with over 26,500.
Other indexes from the GSO also showed the yearly falls in six markets in January-June period namely China, Taiwan, Italy, Laos, the Philippines, and Spain. Among the six, Italy ranks the second with a year-on-year decrease of 21.7 per cent and Laos with 10.5 per cent.
Notably, Vietnam witnessed a year-on-year rise of foreigners flocking to the nation for doing businesses, visiting relatives, tourism, and other purposes.
Particularly, visitors coming to the country to do business registered the highest rate with a yearly increase of 26.3 per cent, followed by those arriving to the country for other purposes with 6.6 per cent, for holiday with 4.1 per cent and for visiting relatives with 3 per cent.
Vietnam received more than 1.5 million in the first four months of 2006, marking a rise of 12 per cent over the same period of 2005.
The Vietnamese National Administration of Tourism (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.
P.V
Vietnamese
