Vietnam arrivals drop 11% in first half

Visitor arrivals to Vietnam declined 11.3% in the first half of 2015.

According to data published by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the country welcomed just 3.8 million overseas visitors in the first six months of the year, with sharp declines in arrivals from key source markets including China and Russia.

Mainland China remained Vietnam’s largest inbound market in the first half. Despite a 28.3% drop in arrivals, the country still provided 814,198 visitors to Vietnam in the six-month period, or 21.4% of the total.

Traffic from Russia, Vietnam’s largest European source market, declined 13.0% to 168,700 visitors, while sharp declines were also seen from neighbouring countries, including Thailand (-29.8% to 100,381), Laos (-34.3% to 45,968) and Cambodia (-41.6% to 118,406).

Vietnam was boosted however, by a sharp jump in arrivals from South Korea. A total of 553,227 Koreans visited Vietnam in the first half, up 36.4% year-on-year, driven by an increase in air lift between the two countries.

Vietnam welcomed a total of 7.87m overseas visitors in 2014.

Vietnam’s top five visitor source markets in H1 2015:

Mainland China: 814,198 (-28.3%)
South Korea: 553,227 (+36.4%)
Japan: 316,751 (-0.3%)
USA: 255,868 (+3.9%)
Taiwan: 209,328 (+0.8%)

sourced:traveldailynews.asia