Vietnam welcomed more than 6.6 million foreign arrivals in the first 10 months of 2014, up 8 percent against the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Of the total, nearly 4 million foreigners chose Vietnam as the destination for their vacations, while more than 1.1 million others came for business purposes.

GSO data shows that the number of visitors from China’s Hong Kong showed a year-on-year rise of 77.6 percent, followed by Germany (62.8 percent), Spain (23.9 percent), Russia (22.5 percent), and Cambodia (21.8 percent).

However, decreases were seen in several markets like Indonesia (1 percent) and China’s Taiwan (0.1 percent).

During January-October, the tourism sector served 34.4 million domestic tourists, up 7.5 percent year-on-year. The sector’s total revenue hit 195.9 trillion VND (9.2 billion USD), a 17.8 percent rise.

The sector expects to welcome 8 million foreign and 37.5 million domestic tourists this year, grossing 240 trillion VND (11.2 billion USD) in revenue.-VNA