Foreign visitors to Vietnam increase by 3.5% in February

According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), the latest addition has brought the number of foreign arrivals to the country in the first two months up to approximately 1.64 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 16%.

Foreign arrivals by air reached about 1.33 million, up 14.2% year-on-year while arrivals by road saw a yearly rise of 31.3% to 288,000. However, arrivals by sea declined 22% to number 24,200.

During the reviewed period, the number of holidaymakers from Asian countries increased 20.3% to over 1.1 million. Several nations saw the strong growth of tourists to Vietnam including China, up 49%, South Korea, up 31% and Japan, up 11%. However, number of Cambodian tourists to Vietnam dropped by 64%, followed by 2% from Laos.

Meanwhile, visitors from European nations experienced a year-on-year rise of 7.5% to reach 296,000 in two months. Encouraging growth was seen in some markets such as the United Kingdom which surged 19.6%, Germany which rose 14.4%, Russia which rose 8.9%, and France which grew 8.1%.

Vietnam hopes to welcome 8.5 million foreign visitors and 60 million domestic travellers by the year-end, earning a total of VND370 trillion (US$16.8 billion) in revenue.

Earlier, Vietnamplus.vn quoted General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Nguyen Van Tuan, as saying that tourism industry would likely to grow at two digits in the first quarter.

The sector was making concerted efforts to revamp and enhance efficiency, as well as professionalism in promotion activities, Tuan said.

He also encouraged localities to attend some tourism fairs such as Beijing's International Tourism Expo (BITE), JATA tourism expo in Japan and the International French Travel Market Top Resa.