Vietnam emerges a new favorite among Asia Pacific travelers

Rice terraces in Sa Pa Town in the northwest province of Lao Cai. Photo by Shutterstock/Efired

In its APAC Travel Trends Report 2018, Scotland-based Skyscanner listed Vietnam as one of the top countries in terms of increasing popularity.

Vietnam has moved from the 8th place in 2017 to the 6th place in the list of top destinations for APAC countries in 2018.

The Republic of Korea is just ahead of Vietnam, moving from 7th position in 2017 to 5th position in 2018.

The report was prepared based on an analysis of Skyscanner’s quantitative data, including information from online surveys, travel data analytics and third-party research.

A nation’s popularity rank was determined by how often a certain place was searched from October 2016 to September 2018 by travelers from eight Asia Pacific markets including Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

In the first 11 months of this year, Vietnam welcomed 14.1 million foreign arrivals, up 21% year-on-year.

During this period, the biggest foreign groups of visitors to Vietnam were South Korean and Chinese travelers, with 4.5 million and 3.6 million tourists respectively.

The number of international arrivals is expected to reach 15 million for the whole year, according to the General Statistics Office.

A global report published last month by the United Nations World Tourism Organization ranked Vietnam’s tourism growth as fourth highest in the world.