The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) will focus on tourism promotion activities abroad from now to the end of the year.

The agency plans to organise a programme to promote Viet Nam’s tourist destinations in China, a leading market for the country’s tourism sector. Around 2.2 million Chinese vacationers visited Viet Nam in the first seven months of 2017, a year-on-year rise of 51 per cent.

Between August 18 and 23, several tourism promotion events will be held in China, at Xiamen City in Fujian Province, Baotou City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Nanchang City in Jiangxi Province. These events are expected to see the participation of 300 to 350 local travel firms.

Besides China, the VNAT will carry out promotional tourism programmes in other markets such as Australia, Northern Europe, Japan, and the ASEAN region in August and September.

The agency will also participate in major international tourism fairs such as the JATA Tourism Expo in Tokyo from September 21-24; the Top Resa Tourism Trade Fair in Paris from September 26-29; the International Travel Fair in Taiwan from October 27-30; and the World Travel Market in London from November 6-10.

The VNAT is also simultaneously promoting tourism through websites vietnamtourism.gov.vn, vietnamtourism.com and vietnamtourism.vn, as well as social networks.

Viet Nam welcomed more than 7.2 million foreign tourists from January to July, up 28.8 per cent from the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.

By 2020, the country aims to receive 17-20 million foreign arrivals and serve 82 million domestic visitors, contributing 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. — VNS