VIETNAM. A government report issued yesterday recorded a +26% on-month increase in international visitor arrivals to Vietnam in August to 193,390.
It was the third monthly increase since SARS began to batter Asian tourism and business travel in March. Arrivals rose +6.7% on-month in June and +44% in July.
However, arrivals for the January-to-August period were down -19.4% year-on-year to 1.4 million visitors, according to the Government Statistical Office.
Of the total arrivals during those eight months, 682,256 were tourists, representing a -29.6% year-on-year decrease.
The number of business visitors during January-August fell only -2.3% year-on-year to 282,540, while the number of those visiting family members decreased -16.7% to 253,907. The number of arrivals for other purposes, however, increased +1.6% to 202,323.
Most of the visitors in the first eight months of this year were from China, with 373,855 arrivals. There were 144,564 from the US, 129,759 visitors from Japan, 116,183 from Taiwan, 74,075 from South Korea, 55,839 from France, 55,396 from Australia, 39,745 from the U.K., 27,783 from Germany and 26,042 from Canada.
According to the report, average spending by foreign tourist is US$500 currently, below the world’s average of US$750.
Vietnam is aiming to attract a total of 2.2 million international arrivals this year, compared with 2.6 million last year.
