Vietnam welcomes 2.3 million foreigners in first quarter

The office has released a breakdown of the visitors, who included 1,403,769 tourists, 391,508 business travelers, 403,829 visiting relatives and 128,819 who visited for other reasons.

More visitors from most tourist markets have come to Vietnam this year, including a 325.9% increase in visitors from Hong Kong (China), a 248.8% increase in Germans, a 55.2% rise in Russians, a 48.9% increase in Chinese and 33.81% more Cambodians than last year.

Meanwhile, 13.7 million domestic tourists traveled around Vietnam during the first quarter, a 6.9% year-on-year rise. Tourists have contributed VND70.2 trillion (US$3.3 billion) to the economy, a 31.2% increase over the first quarter of 2013.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism recently announced its 2014 tourism promotion plan, which includes promotional activities in the country and abroad that should help to attract eight million foreign visitors to Vietnam this year.

Accordingly, Vietnamese delegates are set to attend nine well-known regional and international tourism exhibitions held in Thailand, Japan, France and Singapore, as well as several promotional programmes to be held in the Republic of Korea, Russia, Taiwan (China) and China.

(Source: Nhan Dan Online )