The number of international visitors to Viet Nam in the first 10 months of 2017 was estimated at 10.47 million, marking a year-on-year surge of 28.1 per cent.

The figure was revealed by the General Statistics Office of Viet Nam.

With this positive figure, General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Nguyen Van Tuan said if there was no fluctuation causing great impact, the tourism sector may receive a total of 13 million international visitors this year, up 30 per cent as assigned by the Prime Minister.

“The sector has focused on implementing synchronous solutions to promote tourism in key markets since early this year. 2017 is seen an exciting year for tourism promotion for Viet Nam in international markets, which is an important task for the tourism sector to achieve the target of international visitor growth,” Tuan said.

The new point of tourism promotion this year is that the sector has mobilised resources of the business community and partners. Funding for promotion has not increased compared with previous years, but the scale of events in the markets is much larger and more effective. On the other hand, promotion content has been revamped and professionalism has been improved in comparison with previous years.

However, Tuan said the biggest difficulty in tourism promotion was the limited budget. If more funds were spent, the sector would be able to deploy more large-scale programmes.

“The sector hopes that when the tourism development assistance fund is formed in 2018, more funds will be used for promotion activities. It will continue seeking the participation of Vietnamese businesses and localities to contribute to the promotion of the national tourism brand," he added.

From now until the end of this year, VNAT will boost tourism promotion in several large markets, including China and India, participate in an international tourism fair in the European Union and receive international delegations to explore tourism in Viet Nam.

In domestic market, international visitors to Phu Quoc do not require a visa for 30 days. Phu Quoc Airport is being expanded to welcome an increasing number of visitors. Meanwhile, many airlines have opened regular flight routes or chartered fights to Phu Quoc, such as Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Jetstar Pacific Airlines, China Southern and Lucky Air.

On November 1, travel agency TUI from the United Kingdom will offer flights from the country to Phu Quoc. From December 2017 to April 2018, Italy’s Alpitour Group will host weekly flights from Milan and Italy, to Phu Quoc. — VNS