VIETNAM. The number of international visitors to Vietnam jumped +44% to 153,531 in July from June as the country begins to recover from the impact of SARS.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the figures are a major improvement on the slight increase in June, up +0.7% from May, and the declines seen in April and May.
Officials anticipate a recovery in local tourism in September and expect a sharp increase in the number of foreign arrivals during the 22nd Southeast Asian Games, the region’s biggest sporting event, to be held in December.
In the first seven months of this year, Vietnam recorded 1.23 million international visitors, down -19.5% year-on-year. Tourist numbers declined the most by -28.3% -year-on-year to 594,577, followed by overseas Vietnamese returning home, which were down by -19.1% to 281,425. Business visitors declined -4.6% to 239,028, whereas visitors for other purposes totalled 175,606 in the period, representing a slight increase of +0.2% year-on-year.
Of the 29 listed markets, 23 recorded a decrease with the highest year-on-year falls of 40.5% and 29.6% being seen in the numbers of Spanish and Thai visitors respectively in the January-July period.
China, the US and Japan – Vietnam’s biggest markets – also posted respective declines of 22.8%, 25.9% and 21.3% to 325,772, 125,316 and 114,360 visitors.
Since the end of the SARS outbreak in early May, the tourism sector has made a concerted effort to attract foreign visitors, especially from Japan, South Korea and Europe.
The country’s national flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines, has continued negotiations to open new air routes from Vietnam to Indonesia, India, Thailand and Australia. It has also created favourable conditions for foreign airlines to carry visitors to tourist destinations in Vietnam.
Earlier this month VNAT revised the target for total foreign visitors to Vietnam this year down from the initial 2.8 million to two million.
