Vietnam welcomed around 4.9 million international tourists in the first eight months of this year, up 7.9 percent year-on-year and equivalent to 68 percent of the annual target for 2013.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the higher number of foreign visitors in the reviewed period are mainly from Russia (up by 63.1 percent), China (33.1 percent), Indonesia (25.6 percent), Thailand (24.2 percent) and New Zealand (21.9 percent).

In the first days of August, the country received 677,000 international tourists, a 22 percent surge from the corresponding period in 2012.

In the eight-month period, domestic tourism has also seen growth, with a year-on-year increase of 11.7 percent seeing local tourist numbers hit 29.3 million.

Vietnam’s tourism sector is estimated to have earned over 138 trillion VND (nearly 6.5 billion USD) so far this year, an increase of 22.5 percent against last year’s figures.-VNA