Vietnam’s tourism rolls to new records
August 25, 2010 by Rapeepat Mantanarat
Filed under Mekong Region
BANGKOK, 25 August 2010 – International visitors to Vietnam in July were reached an estimated 410,000 an increase of 51.1% over the same month last year.
International arrivals for the first seven months of the year tallied 2,920,521 representing a 34.9% growth. According to data supplied by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam and published on the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism website, China continued to be the country’s top supplier.
It is understood the country benefited from Thailand’s political troubles after China issued a travel advisory warning its citizens to avoid Bangkok earlier in the year. Many of the tours switched to Vietnam a trend that continued into July.
Vietnam received 74,633 Chinese visitors in July, double what the country received during the same month in 2009. Over seven months, the accumulated visitors from China stood at 511,847, just 15,763 fewer than the 527,610 visitors the country welcomed for all of 2009.
The second top supplier was South Korea, up from third place last year with 36,827 visits in July and 289,190 during the first seven months of the year.
The United States dropped from second to the third place supplying 36,098 visits in July and 266,881 in the seven-month period.
The forth supplier in the top 10 category was Japan (29,536 in July and 240,284, seven months), followed by Taiwan (32,594 and 199,144 respectively), Australia (23,522 and 166,899), Cambodia (25,867 and 142,734), Thailand (15,981 and 125,797), France (16,085 and 117,578) and Malaysia (16,472 and 115,687).
The data showed that 80.5% of the visitors traveled by air (330,000), while just 18.3% of visitors travelled overland (75,000) and 1.22% by sea (5,000). Tourism was the driver for 61% of the visits and business for 20.4% while14.25% were visiting relatives.
