Around 183,000 foreign tourists visited Hanoi during the lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, a year-on-year increase of 16 percent.

The city’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Department said that thanks to visa exemptions, the number of Overseas Vietnamese increased sharply to almost 700,000.

The department predicted that the number of tourists from traditional markets including China, Japan, France, Australia, the Republic of Korea and other Southeast Asian nations will increase in the first quarter of the year.

Hanoi also welcomed more than 1.8 million domestic visitors, a year-on-year rise of 40 percent. The Huong (Perfume) Pagoda festival and Thang Long Imperial Citadel relic site attracted the largest number of tourists.

Around 28,500 Vietnamese people went abroad to spent their long Tet holiday that lasted from Jan. 21 to 29. Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and China remained their favourite destinations./.