Central region proves popular among tourists from Thailand

The figures show that Thailand has surpassed the Republic of Korea in terms of growth rate of foreign visitors to the country. During the reviewed period, Vietnam received more than 245,000 arrivals from Thailand.

According to an annual report released by the General Statistics Office, Thai tourists are particularly keen to travel to popular tourism destinations in Vietnam such as such as Da Nang, Hoi An, and, Nha Trang.

Aside from the opening of several new air routes that connect major cities in Thailand to popular tourist towns in Vietnam, co-operation among ASEAN member states is also considered to be the key factor to strengthen source markets for Vietnam. 

At present, the rate of tourists travelling between ASEAN nations makes up between 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the total inflow.

Therefore, in the development plan towards 2020, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism will continue to deploy a range of tourism promotion activities aimed at the Southeast Asian market.

Furthermore, negotiations will be conducted with the aim of improving co-operation in order to balance the number of Vietnamese tourists visiting Thailand and vice versa.

The high growth rate was also reported in markets such as Taiwan (27 per cent) and Indonesia (22 per cent), while there were reductions in the number of tourists from China, down more than 3 per cent.

During the first six months of the year, the country welcomed 8.5 million foreign arrivals, an increase of 7.5 per cent on-year while domestic travelers were estimated to be at nearly 45.5 million.

The total revenue from tourism activities surged by 8.4 per cent to VND338,200 billion against last year’s corresponding period.