Tourists at Hoi An ancient town (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s tourism sector has made new records in 2016, said NguyenVan Tuan, Head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism at a pressconference on December 22 in Hanoi.
According toTuan, one of the records is the number of 10 million international touristarrivals, up 25 percent against last year (or two million), making the highestthus far.
The ten-millionthforeign visitor to Vietnam will land Phu Quoc international airport in thesouthern coastal province of Kien Giang on December 25.
The sector also served62 million domestic tourists and earned total revenues of 400 trillion VND (18billion USD).
Such figures showed that the sector in 2016 has reached the goals set for 2020 under theStrategy for Vietnamese tourism development in 2020 with a vision to 2030.
According to thetourism administration, most of foreign tourist groups to Vietnam increased in2016.
To date, NortheastAsian visitors have topped the list, especially those from China, Japan and theRepublic of Korea (RoK). They together made up 30 percent of internationaltourists in 2016.
The number ofWestern European travellers to Vietnam also experienced a soar, including thosefrom Italy, the UK, France, Germany and Spain, which are benefiting fromVietnam’s visa exemption policy.
By the end ofOctober this year, as many as 635,000 tourists from those markets arrived inVietnam, an increase of 16 percent compared to the same period last year. Of thefigure, the Italian market upped 30 percent, Spain and the UK ones jumped by 27percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Russia is the Vietnamesetourism sector’s biggest European market with a growth of 27 percent, whilesmall – scale ones such as the Netherlands and Sweden also enjoyed asignificant rise.
In 2017, thecountry’s tourism aims to lure 11.5 million international tourists and serve 66million domestic visitors, earning 460 trillion VND (20.24 billion USD) inrevenue.-VNA
VNA
