Tourism Australia has launched a Vietnamese language official website for customers at www.australia.com , the Australian embassy said on July 6.

By the end of March 2010, Australia saw over 37,000 visitors from Vietnam , an encouraging increase of nine percent from the previous year, despite a challenging year including the global financial crisis and A/H1N1 epidemic.

“Vietnam is an emerging marketing for Australia, with good potential for growth, given the strong affinity that Vietnamese have with Australia in terms of education and immigration,” said Maggie White, Regional General Manager, South/Southeast Asia and Gulf Countries, Tourism Australia.

She adds, “We believe that having Australia.com available in the Vietnamese language will help inspire more Vietnamese to visit Australia.”

Tourism Australia will continue to work closely with its airline partners and Aussie Specialist travel agent partners to ensure the availability of attractive travel options for Vietnamese consumers, she said.

According to Australia ’s Foreign and Trade Ministry, more than 210,000 Australians visited Vietnam in 2009./.