The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism reported that this year, National Reunification Day and May Day fell on Saturday and Sunday, so people had two more days off on May 2 and May 3.
The four-day holiday took place at a time of early summer, which is a perfect time for travel among families and groups, thus it created favourable conditions for the tourism sector to restart.
Seizing the opportunity, localities across the country have boosted tourism linkage, designed new tourist products and services, and improved infrastructure to lure more visitors.
Thanh Hoa welcomed the largest number of visitors during the four days with about 898,000 people. The total tourism revenue reached approximately 1.96 trillion VND, up 123.2% over the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the capital city of Hanoi served over 550,000 tourists, an almost 20-fold increase compared to that of 2020, according to the municipal Department of Tourism. The city collected over 1.5 trillion VND (65.4 million USD) in total revenue from tourism activities, a 17-fold rise against 2020’s figure.
The occupancy rate of hotels and resorts in the city is estimated at 42.2 percent. Hotels and tourist apartments with high occupancy rates include Somerset Tay Ho (60 percent), Tay Ho's Inter Continental Hanoi Westlake (60 percent), Lotte Hanoi (80 percent) and Inter Continental Hanoi Landmark 72 (60 percent).
The city organised the Hanoi Tourism Gift Festival 2022, attracting more than 65,000 tourists. The night tour of Thang Long Imperial Citadel greeted 150 visitors per day.
At the same time, Sa Pa, a famous tourist attraction in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai, welcomed a record number of 98,000 visitors, a 122-percent rise over the same time in 2019 before the COVID-19 broke out.
Ho Chi Minh City welcomed around 620,000 visitors, including 13,200 foreigners, and earned over 1.6 trillion VND in tourism revenue on the occasion.
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Hai Tien beach in Hoang Hoa district, Thanh Hoa province crowded with tourists during the holiday (Photo: NDO/Mai Luan)
To meet the increasing travel demand during the holiday, major airlines arranged more flights on all domestic routes. Accordingly, airlines operated nearly 1,000 flights/day on the occasion, up about 30 percent compared to weekdays.
This was not only for aviation as the Vietnam Railways Corporation also ran an additional 25 trains on routes from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to provinces and cities such as Hai Phong, Binh Dinh, and Thua Thien Hue.
Along with domestic tourism, the number of international arrivals to Vietnam (inbound) and Vietnamese people going abroad (outbound) also soared during this time.
Some key tourist destinations witnessed a sharp increase in the number of international visitors. For example, Da Nang welcomed 18 international flights from Singapore, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea, with around 7,400 foreigners, 16 times higher than the same period in 2021.
Meanwhile, Hai Phong city served 4,500 international holidaymakers, most of them spent their holiday in Do Son and Cat Ba tourist sites.
Many travel firms said that their outbound tours were fully booked and favourite destinations included Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Singapore and the EU.
It can be seen that the encouraging results of tourism activities during the recent holidays signalled a strong recovery of the hospitality industry in the coming time.
