According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, international visitors to Vietnam reached 1.43 million in August, up 17.7 per cent over the same period last year.
In the first eight months, international visitors to the country reached more than 11.4 million, up 45.8 per cent over the same period last year and up 1.0 per cent over the same period in 2019 — the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Attracting more visitors
Regularly traveling around the world, Peter William, a British man, said that in addition to the favourable geography, climate, beautiful landscapes, delicious food, and friendly people, the open visa policy is the main reason why he has traveled to Vietnam many times.
The new visa policy also helps travel companies to exploit the international tourist market more effectively.
According to Nguyen Hoai Thu, Director of Saigontourist Travel Branch in Hanoi, the new policy on visas and immigration from August 15, 2023, has created favorable conditions for improving Vietnam's competitiveness in accessing new sources of customers, especially proactive customers, family customers, and individual customers.
Therefore, businesses have quickly built suitable new products and organised promotional activities, promoting deeply into the market, by inviting delegations to survey the Vietnamese market, taking advantage of the effectiveness of the new policy.
"In the first eight months of the year alone, we continuously welcomed and served nearly 50,000 international visitors, an increase of 15 per cent over the same period in 2023," Thu shared.
Among the 11.4 million visitors to Vietnam, air travel accounted for 9.7 million arrivals, making up 84.7 per cent of the total and reflecting a year-on-year increase of 41 per cent. Land travel reached 1.6 million arrivals, comprising 13.8 per cent of the total and showing a 73.3 per cent rise, while sea travel saw 165,600 visitors, accounting for 1.5 per cent and rising 2.8 times in numbers compared to the same period last year.
The Asian market remains Vietnam's largest source of international visitors, with over 9 million arrivals, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 51 per cent . The European and Oceania markets continued to grow steadily, with respective increases of 42.7 per cent (over 1.3 million visitors) and 25.4 per cent (346,500 visitors).
The American market recorded the smallest growth, rising by 7.8 per cent to 674,300 visitors. Although the number of visitors from Africa remains limited, they have recorded the strongest growth in the eight months, with a rise of 95.5 per cent year on year, standing at 34,200 tourists.
A representative from the General Statistics Office noted that favourable visa policies, intensified tourism promotion campaigns and prestigious international awards have contributed to the significant rise in foreign tourists visiting Vietnam.
Setting new record
According to Ha Van Sieu, Deputy General Director of Vietnam National Tourism Administration, the tourism industry has organised many programmes and events in recent times to promote Vietnamese tourism.
Specifically, typical domestic examples include a number of large-scale annual tourism fairs such as: Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM) - Hanoi 2024, and the International Travel Expo Ho Chi Minh City (ITE HCMC 2024).
Vietnam has also proactively participated in many international tourism fairs abroad, such as World Travel Market London, the China International Travel Mart (CITM), and China-ASEAN Expo Tourism Exhibition, with the message "Live fully in Vietnam".
The country also organised six programmes to introduce Vietnamese tourism in North America, Australia, China, Europe, ASEAN, and India; and three Vietnamese cultural tourism festivals in Japan and the Republic of Korea (RoK). It also welcomed ten famtrip groups from China, the RoK, Japan, India, the US, Taiwan (China).
The expansion and diversification of promotional activities in major markets has helped Vietnam tourism not only increase the number of international visitors but also diversify many potential new markets.
Specifically, most recently, billionaire Dilip Shanghvi — one of the richest people in India, founder of Sun Pharma — organised a tour to Vietnam for 4,500 of its employees.
Earlier this year, an Indian billionaire couple held a wedding in Vietnam, attracting many luxury tourists from around the world to visit.
In addition to the luxury group from India, Vietnam also welcomed many “elite” tourists from different countries.
Previously, in March, billionaire Bill Gates and his girlfriend came to Vietnam for a vacation. The world's top billionaire spent about five days in Da Nang and Hoi An, staying at a first-class 5-star resort in Son Tra. These are guests who are willing to pay for expensive services, long-term stays, and ensuring security and environment for the places they visit.
Ha Van Sieu said that in September, the tourism industry will promote and advertise tourism in the US with the theme "Vietnam Expo in Hollywood" to promote tourist destinations and potential filming locations, attract film studios from the "world cinema capital" to Vietnam to film films with great appeal, and promote the attraction of international tourists to Vietnam.
The programme will be organised on a large scale, with high professionalism, actively contributing to promoting connections and cooperation between tourism businesses, airlines, transportation companies, and cinemas in Vietnam and the US. Tourism businesses, film businesses, actors, and some KOLs will be the main subjects of this promotion programme.
With these efforts, in the remaining three months of the year, which are also the peak for international visitors, Sieu expects the tourism industry to surpass the record from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, by welcoming 18 million international visitors.
