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| Foreign tourists visit the Gao Giong ecological tourism site in the southern province of Dong Thap. More than 567,000 international visitors arrived in Viet Nam last month, a 30 per cent rise over the same month last year. — VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Hue |
HA NOI (Biz Hub)— More than 567,000 international visitors arrived in Viet Nam last month, a 30 per cent rise over the same month last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
As a result, the total number of foreign arrivals during the first six months of the year exceeded 3.54 million, a year-on-year increase of 2.6 per cent.
More than 2.8 million arrived by air, up 0.8 per cent year on year, while over 120,000 arrived by sea (up 2.7 per cent) and 561,000 by land (up 12.5 per cent).
Over 2.16 million tourists came to the country, accounting for 61 per cent of total visitors, followed by business travellers and visiting relatives.
Tourists from Russia saw a 58 per cent rise in the number of visitors, followed by Thailand (24 per cent), Indonesia (21.5 per cent) and mainland China (21 per cent).
Despite economic difficulties, the administration remained optimistic that the tourism market would recover in the upcoming months.
The number of visitors continued to increase in spite of a 1.4 per cent fall in the first five months of the year.
The domestic tourism industry is working with foreign agencies to create new tours and routes to attract more foreign tourists, according to the Viet Nam Administration of Tourism.
The country expects to receive about 7.2 million foreign visitors this year, an increase of 5.15 per cent, and to host about 35 million domestic tourists (a surge of 7.69 per cent).
Foreign visitors spent an average of nine days in Viet Nam. They also poured a relatively big amount of foreign currency into the economy, spending an average of US$1,002 per arrival last year, much higher than in 2005, when the average spending was $661 per arrival.
Tourists paid the most for accommodations, which accounted for 27 per cent of total spending, followed by cuisine (20 per cent), travel (17 per cent) and goods purchasing (15 per cent).
Tourists from Japan spent the most: $167 per day per person. They were followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines.
The country earned $6.83 billion last year from tourist spending, equivalent to 70 per cent of overseas national currency exchange.
Quang Ninh looks to future
Northeastern Quang Ninh Province's Tourism Agency has been working with partners in Japan and the South Korea to establish tourism representative offices in the two countries.
These offices would promote Viet Nam's culture, economy and tourism and are scheduled to open later this year.
Recently, the province and the Japanese International Culture Association WANOKAI have worked together on ways to spur tourism development.
The number of Japanese visitors to Viet Nam is rising annually but the number of those returning to the country was still low, Hamada-Kazuki, Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Japan, noted at the working session.
In another move, executives and experts from the tourism industry met in Ha Noi last month to seek ways for the lucrative and fast-growing non-smoking industry to be more successful.
At the conference, Viet Nam National Tourism Administration Chairman Nguyen Van Tuan called for the establishment of Vietnamese tourism representative offices in Japan, the South Korea and Russia, which are among Viet Nam's key partner markets.
Da Nang, Nha Trang popular
The number of tourists visiting two central coastal cities, Da Nang and Nha Trang, has so far risen by 16 per cent and 20 per cent compared with the same period last year, authorities have reported.
In the first half of the year, Da Nang received 400,000 foreign visitors, up by 11.4 per cent year-on-year. The city also received 1.15 million local tourists, a year-on-year increase of 18 per cent.
According to the Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the city's tourism industry attained revenue of over VND3.6 trillion ($172 million) , up 23.7 per cent over the same period last year.
Da Nang welcomed 53 cruise ships with a total of 60,000 cruise travellers to the city, up 67 per cent over last year.
Flights between Da Nang and Hong Kong, and Wenzhou and Chengdu in China, brought the number of visitors to 117,000, an increase of 94.2 per cent compared with the first half of 2012.
Meanwhile, the number of tourist arrivals to central Khanh Hoa Province in the first six months of the year was estimated at 5.4 million.
According to figures from Khanh Hoa's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the province provided accommodations to 1.4 million visitors, an increase of 20 per cent compared with last year. The figure includes 309,000 foreign travellers, a year-on-year surge of 19 per cent.
In the first half of 2013, the city's tourism sector attained revenue of VND1,484 billion ($70.6 million), a rise of 19 per cent over last year.
The new direct-air services between Khanh Hoa Province and Russia in the past two years resulted in an increase of 50 per cent of Russian visitors.
Russians form a large majority of visitors to Khanh Hoa, contributing over 50 per cent of the revenue of the province's tourism industry.
Hue sets next target
The former imperial city of Hue received 1.5 million visitors in the first half of this year and expects to top that figure in the second half, according to the Thua Thien-Hue Province's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
However, local tour operators and statistics on a monument visit promotion showed a different picture.
The department report said the visitor tally was an increase of 101.8 per cent over the same period last year, one-third of which were foreigners.
It said room occupation levels at accommodation facilities were around 76 per cent. Total revenue from tourism was $57 million.
However, contrary to the department's document, tour operators reported many cancels because of the local airport's closure for eight months, from March to November this year.
Tourists instead landed in Da Nang and thus decided to stay in the city or Hoi An rather than Hue.
Tourist guides revealed visitors were also reluctant to take car tours to Hue because of the hot weather.
Tourism workers were pessimistic about the rest of the year because the airport would be closed until the end of November. — VNS