Tourism progression continues in Vietnam

HANOI- Vietnam tourism continues to show strong progression with road arrivals and air arrivals booming. Road traffic grew by 31 %, representing a market share of 17.7 %. This is mostly due to further improvement of highways infrastructures and more cross-border checkpoints. Air transport continues to show growth, even if the rate remains below national average. Growth in air transport reached 7.1%. Enhanced competition between legacy and low cost airlines will continue to stimulate air transport growth. However, Vietnam needs now to further open its air space to international traffic if it wants to see a further boost in air arrivals. Four airports only are officially opened to regular schedules (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang and Phu Quoc) with holiday flights also allowed to Nha Trang. However, other cities such as Dalat, Haiphong or Hue could easily support a few regional flights –such as Bangkok, Phnom Penh or Kuala Lumpur-, which would help those destinations to become more attractive for foreign visitors.

According  the Vietnam National Tourism Administration, total international arrivals continue to be driven by China, Russia and Korea, a story which is repeated across most Southeast Asian destinations. Just spectacular is the progression of Russian travellers in a year time: during the first nine months of 2013, Russians represented close to 210,000 visitors, up by 65.9%. In September alone, Russian arrivals jumped by over 105% compared to a year earlier! Russia is now turning into Europe’s largest inbound market, a position that is easily to take over as the rest of Europe remains glued in recession.

Most major European markets are losing steam this year, except the UK, Spain, Norway and the Benelux. Growths from this country remain however inferior to 10%. However large source markets such as France or Germany are recording strong decrease rates of respectively 6.7% and 23.9%.

However, markets from the Pacific are striving with New Zealand up by 20.5% and Australia by over 12%...

Sourced: TravelDailyNews