Foreign arrivals make impressive growth

VGP – Viet Nam welcomed over 1.43 million foreign arrivals in February, representing a year-on-year growth of 19.4% against the same period last year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported.

March 01, 2018 8:55 AM GMT+7

Illustration photo

In the January-February period, the number of foreign visitors exceeded 2.86 million, up 29.7% against the same period last year. Especially, the number of air passengers grew 26.3%; road visitors up 58.4%; and seaway tourists up 3.5%.

In the first two months, the number of Asian visitors experienced the sharpest growth rate or 35.8% year-on-year, reaching 2.12 million. Visitors from all key markets picked up, especially from China (up 38.5%); the Republic of Korea (up 70%), Japan (6.2%), Taiwan (up 7.4%), Malaysia (up 22.6%), and Thailand (7.7%). The number of tourists from Europe went up 16.7%, Russia 19.5%; the UK 11.8%; France 11.6%.

The General Department of Tourism said that in 2018, the sector targets to welcome 15-17 million international guests and serve 78 million domestic ones (up 6.56% against 2017); earned VND 620 trillion (up 21.35% against 2017).

Vice President of the Viet Nam Tourism Association Vu The Binh assessed that in 2018, Northeast Asia with four markets including China, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Taiwan (China) continue to be key tourism markets of Viet Nam. Last year, the regional market prospered in which China and the RoK were leading with 4 million and 2.4 million, respectively./.

By Kim Loan