Published:  09:22 Wednesday - November 30, 2016

More than nine million foreigners visited Vietnam between January and November, up 25.4 per cent compared to the same period in 2015, the General Statistics Office (GSO) has revealed.

The 11-month record figure has already surpassed the entire year’s target of 8.5 million, the GSO said.

In November alone, more than 926,000 foreigners arrived in Việt Nam, 14 per cent higher than last month and 25 per cent higher than last November.

The number of foreign visitors who flew into the country reached 7.53 million, up 32 per cent year-on-year. The number of visitors arriving by sea dropped 11.4 per cent year-on-year to 139,000, while arrivals by road also saw a slight decline of 1.5 per cent, to 1.31 million.

In the 11-month period, the highest number of visitors were from China, with nearly 2.5 million Chinese travelling to Việt Nam so far this year, a 54 per cent surge compared to the same period last year.

South Korea came second, with 1.4 million tourists, up 39.2 per cent, while Japan and the US ranked third and fourth, with 680,000, up 10.5 per cent, and 500,000, up 13.4 per cent, respectively.

The number of tourists also grew from countries such as New Zealand (up 35 per cent), Russia (up 29 per cent), Thailand (up 29 per cent), Italy (up 27 per cent), the UK (up 20 per cent), Germany (up 18 per cent), Canada (up 16 per cent) and Taiwan (up 15 per cent).

The tourism sector also served 57.7 million domestic travellers during this 11-month period, the GSO said. 

The total revenue for the period is estimated at VNĐ368.6 trillion (US$16.4 billion), up 18.6 per cent year-on-year.

With such positive figures, the GSO has forecast that the total number of foreign tourists would likely hit 9.7 million by year end and tourism revenue would touch VNĐ400 trillion ($17.8 billion). - VNS