Eleni, who will stayin the city for 10 days, said the honour came as a complete surprise toher and she will explore everything during her first visit to Vietnam.
During the ceremony, six travel agencies thatserved the highest number of foreign tourists were also honoured,including Vietnamtourism-Hanoi JSC, Metropole Legend Sofitel Hanoi, andInter Continental Hanoi.
According to To Van Dong,Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, thegloomy economic situation in 2014, coupled with impacts from China’sillegal placement of its oil drilling rig in Vietnam’s continental shelfand economic executive zone, was the reason behind a fall in the numberof tourists to Hanoi and Vietnam in general.
However, with timely adjustments made in its market strategy, Hanoi still catered for three million visitors, he said.
This year, the over 1,000-year-old city was ranked second in the listof 25 top destinations in Asia by TripAdvisor. Hanoi was alsonamed as a tourism city with best price, and placed at the 8 thposition in the world’s top 25 tourist attractions.
The capital was selected by Smart Travel Asia magazine as one of the top 10 Asian destinations for vacation.-VNA