Vietnamese catch the travel bug

HANOI Vietnam Tourism Association estimates around 6.5 million Vietnamese travelled overseas, last year, an increase of 15% from 2015 and spent around USD7 to USD8 billion.

Local media quoted the association vice chairman, Vu The Binh, saying the association based its estimate on data from tourism authorities in popular destinations that attract Vietnamese tourists such as Thailand, Singapore, China, South Korea and Japan.

“Outbound travel is on the rise, leading to a large pickup in spend…the outbound travel segment is now a strong source of income for many travel agents.”

During January to November last year, 771,461 Vietnamese tourists travelled to Thailand, up 10.76% from 696,497 visits during the same period in 2015, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

In addition, 433,803 Vietnamese tourists visited Singapore for the first 11 months of 2016, up 11.8% over the same period in 2015, according to Singapore Tourism Board.

Korea Tourism Organisation data shows, 232,770 Vietnamese visited South Korea during January to November, last year, an improvement of 54.2% from 150,949 visits during the same period in 2015.

Japan reported 220,700 Vietnamese visited the country during the first 11 months of last year, up 26.1% over the same period in 2015, according to Japan National Tourism Organisation figures.

Vietnam is expected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 9.5% between 2016 and 2021 for outbound travel, according to the “Future of Outbound Travel in Asia Pacific 2016 to 2021” report by Mastercard, released last week.

In 2021, around 7.5 million Vietnamese will travel annually, according to the report.

However, VITA estimates 6.5 million outbound trips were made in 2016, which is higher than Mastercard’s forecast of 4.8 million trips for last year.