February foreign tourist arrivals up 32.4% y-o-y

The tourism sector recorded an impressive performance last month with over 590,000 foreign visitors visiting the country, up 32.4% from a year ago, says a General Statistics Office report.

The strong growth is explainable as February is a high season month for the tourism sector. This sent the total number of international visitors to the country in the first two months this year rising 19.5% to 1.06 million.

HCMC, the country’s biggest tourism hub, attracted around 310,000 foreign visitors last month, up 8% year-on-year, with total revenue estimated to grow 34% from the year-ago period to VND4.3 trillion.

HCMC tour operators and hoteliers have shown optimism about their business given the strong February performance and the positive outlook for the rest of the year.

“Our revenue and profit are better than the same period last year. Bookings for the next season are quite good,” Bui Viet Thuy Tien, managing director of Asian Trails Co., told the Daily.

Quang Ninh Province, which is known for its World Heritage-listed Halong Bay, put foreign arrivals last month at 186,000, which took the total in the first two months to 400,000, up 10% year-on-year. Many of the visitors to this northern province were cruise ship passengers who toured Halong Bay.

On Tuesday alone, 400 passengers on board the American cruise ship Seabourn Sojourn that came to Vietnam for the first time and 1,500 passengers aboard the Italian cruise ship Costa Classica dropped by Halong.

A day earlier, the British ship Arcadia called on the bay for the first time with around 2,000 passengers on board, mostly of them Britons and Australians.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) expects the country to welcome 5.3 to 5.5 million foreign visitors this year.

To achieve that target, this national tourism authority is preparing to launch the first marketing campaign of the year. VNAT and tourism businesses will join the world-known travel trade show ITB Berlin in Germany slated for March 9-13.

VNAT is also working on a plan to honor foreign travel firms for sending big numbers of international tourists to the country.

Source: The Saigon Times