Int’l tourists sharply increases in first months

VGP – The number of international tourists to Việt Nam jumped from 431,000 in January to 446,000 in February, the Việt Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) reported.

March 01, 2010 10:21 AM GMT+7

Việt Nam has become a favorite destination for international tourists

The February figure rose by 30.2% against the same period of 2009.

Senior officials from VNAT reported that unlike 2010, about 200,000 international tourists traveled to Việt Nam in the first month of previous years. And the figure tended to decrease in the following months.

Cambodia, China, Republic of Korea, and Thailand are the country’s key tourist markets.

Hồ Chí Minh City received 288,000 tourists in February, including 130,000 overseas Vietnamese, up by 15% compared to the same period of last year. For the first two months, the total of 570,000 international tourists visited the city, accounting for 20.3% of the city’s target to receive at least 2.8 million visitors this year.

The number of domestic tourists also flourished during the Lunar New Year holiday. At least 90,000 Vietnamese tourists departed abroad from the International Airport of Tân Sơn Nhất.

VNAT attributed the sharp increase in the country’s tourist figure to the positive recovery sign of the world economy as well as the effectiveness of the country’s adoption of earlier tourism promotion programs.

By Hải Minh