Honesty the best policy: National tourism authority

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has decided to publish online a "black list" of dishonest tourism services and facilities that tend to rip off customers.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has decided to publish online a "black list" of dishonest tourism services and facilities that tend to rip off customers.

The list will soon be published on the organisation's two websites, tourism.gov.vn and vietnamtourism.com, in a move to improve the quality of tourism.

The decision comes as the number of tourists continues to grow rapidly. More than 6 million foreigners have visited Vietnam since the start of the year, a year-on-year increase of 10.4 percent, reports the General Statistics Office (GSO).

However, the total overall growth since 2009 has been 22.3 percent a year. The number of visitors was 3.747 million in 2009, 5 million in 2010, 6.25 million in 2011, and 6.8 million in 2012.

Tourists numbered more than 3.75 million, while another 1 million arrived on business, similar to the number arriving to see relatives.

Another 327,000 people arrived for other purposes. Arrivals from Russia showed the sharpest growth rate, 66.1 percent, while visitors from China rose 36.2 percent and from Thailand, by 21 percent.

In October alone, the country attracted around 630,000 foreign visitors, a rise of 2.3 percent against September and 15.1 percent higher than for the same month last year.

According to the GSO, the average spending by visitors is expected to reach 1,067 USD per head this year. From January to September, Vietnam's tourism sector earned an estimated 7.24 billion USD in revenue, up 23.5 percent year-on-year.

Vietnam sets the goal of welcoming more than 7.4 million of travelers in 2013, which can help gain around 7.9 billion USD in revenues, a surge of 15.6 percent compared to 6.83 billion USD in 2012.-VNA

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