Vietnam, the sun warm Southeastern Asian nation, received around 2.7 million visitors from overseas in the first nine months of this year, up 4.6 per cent year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
The GSO has, however, not counted the total revenue of the hospitality sector during the period, an official from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said without mentioning the reason for the timid rise.
Among the 31 listed markets, China remained the number-one market of Vietnam in the January-September period with more than 414,880 visitors, although the number of Chinese to the communist country also plummeted the most among all groups of foreign arrivals, by 25.9 per cent on-year.
Unofficial sources attributed the consecutively drop in the influx of Chinese tourists in recent months to China’s policies on limiting cross-border travel to curb the number of Chinese people gambling in Vietnam, and a regulation to stop granting entry-exit visas for 14 countries sharing the borders with China.
South Korea and the US kept their second and third rankings with 306,190 and 291,799 holidaymakers, respectively, in the reviewed period, posting respective on-year increases of 30.6 and 15.2 per cent.
Meanwhile, Thailand posted the highest on-year growth rate in the number of tourists visiting Vietnam in the nine-month span, at 48 per cent. The followings were South Korea, 29 per cent; Malaysia, 27 per cent; Denmark, 26 per cent; Japan and Russia, 21 per cent, the GSO reported.
The GSO also reported the year-on-year falls in seven markets in the January-September phase namely China, Cambodia, Taiwan, Italy, Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines. Among the seven, Laos ranked the second with a year-on-year decrease of 13 per cent and Italy, 12.4 per cent.
In September alone, the communist country welcomed approximately 290,000 foreign arrivals, which represented a 9 per cent increase from the same period last year. Of those, Japan surpassed South Korea and China to come first with 42,840 visitors. The runners-up were China with 34,580 and South Korea 32,000.
Noteworthy, Vietnam witnessed growth in three groups of international arrivals, including those flocking to the nation for doing businesses, visiting relatives, and for holidays during the nine-month period.
Specifically, visitors coming to the communist country for doing business registered the highest rate, at 17.3 per cent, followed by those arriving to the country for visiting relatives with 11 per cent, and for holidays with 2.9 per cent.
However, the percentage of tourists arriving in the country for doing other purposes decreased by 7.9 per cent during the period.
Room occupancy rate at hotels nationwide reached 70-80 per cent in the period. The rate even reached 100 per cent at various 4-5 starred hotels in large tourism centers, such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang city in the central Khanh Hoa province.
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.
Vietnam targets to host as many as 20.9 million tourists this year. Of them, 3.9 million are predicted 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.
GSO, Vietnam Financial Times
Vietnamese
