Vietnam, home to five World Heritage sites, welcomed more than two million foreign tourists in the first seven months of this year, representing a year-on-year increase of 7 per cent, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
The GSO has, however, not published 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 much travelers to stay glued to their TV sets to view football matches and less attractiveness of local tourism products.
Among the 31 listed markets, China remained the number-one market of Vietnam in the January-July period of this year with more than 358,000 visitors, although the number of Chinese coming to the communist country down by 22.6 per cent against the same period of 2005, registering the first position among the countries having fewer visitors to Vietnam.
Unofficial sources attributed the consecutively drop in the influx of Chinese tourists in recent months to the neighbor’s policy on limiting cross-border travel to curb the number of Chinese people gambling in Vietnam, and its regulation to stop granting entry-exit visas for 14 countries sharing the borders with China.
The US and South Korea maintained their second and third rankings with more than 240,560 and 236,500 vacationers in the first seven months of the year, posting on-year increases of 17.9 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively.
In July alone, the communist country received over 303,000 international visitors, including 47,000 from China, 40,780 from the US and nearly 28,630 from South Korea.
Notably, Vietnam posted growth in all four groups of foreigners flocking to the nation to do business, visit relatives and for tourism and other purposes.
In details, visitors coming to the communist country for doing business registered the highest increase rate of 24.9 per cent, followed by those arriving to the country for visiting relatives with 8.5 per cent, for a holiday with 3.6 per cent and for other purposes with 2.9 per cent.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, air arrivals accounted for 70 per cent of the visitors during the period, while fewer arrived by land routes.
The tourism sector expects to attract a large number of foreign visitors to Vietnam in the last months of this year with major events in the framework of the Quang Nam National Tourism Year 2006 and the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting.
The VNAT has set a target to host as many as 20.9 million tourists in 2006, including 3.9 million foreign arrivals and 17 million domestic vacationers, an on-year increase of 14 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively.
GSO
Vietnamese
