Foreign tourists soar by 80% in October

The figure increased by 17.8 per cent compared with October last year.Of those, about 445,612 international visitors arrived by plane, accounting for 85.9 per cent of the total visitors; 1,500 by sea, 0.3 per cent; 71,365 by road, 13.8 per cent.

The number of foreign visitors to Viet Nam by plane increased by 24.6 per cent in comparison with the same period last year while the number of international visitors arriving by sea and road decreased 66.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively.

About 314,000 international tourists came to Viet Nam for a holiday, a rise of 21.1 per cent compared with October last year. About 86,305 visitors arrived for business purposes, a decline of 0.1 per cent.

In the first 10 months of the year, of a total 4.83 million international tourists to Viet Nam, 2.9 million visitors came for tourism purposes.

During the same period, the country saw the highest increase from Cambodia, 56.9 per cent, followed by China, 45.8 per cent, Malaysia, 11.7 per cent and Japan 8.5 per cent.

The number of foreign visitors from South Korea, Taiwan, France, Australia, the US was also on the rise. Only the number of visitors from Thailand declined (20.7 per cent) in comparison with the same period past year.

East Russians flock to central coast

A Russia OrenAir plane carrying 190 passengers from Krasnoyarsk city landed at Cam Ranh International Airport in Khanh Hoa Province last Saturday, starting the winter holiday service from eastern Russia to the central coastal cities of Nha Trang and Phan Thiet.

The air service, which will last until April next year, connects nine cities in far eastern Russia such as Kharbarovsk, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo with Viet Nam's popular beach resort cities.

Director of Khanh Hoa provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Truong Dang Tuyen said about 70 per cent of Russian tourists using this route would stay in Nha Trang, the rest in Phan Thiet City in neighbouring Binh Thuan Province.

He said local tourism operators had designed tours for sight-seeing, relaxation, and discovering the Vietnamese culture.Khanh Hoa Province received 400,000 foreign tourists so far this year, including nearly 30,000 Russians.

Source - vietnamnet.vn