The central province of Thua Thien-Hue welcomed 190 foreign visitors aboard a Vietnam Airlines’ flight from Ha Noi on January 1.
Two UK nationals, Andrew Frost and Chung Mei See, were the lucky tourists greeted by leaders of the provincial tourism sector at the Phu Bai International Airport and presented with a night at five-star La Residence Hotel.
Vice Director of the provincial Tourism Department Nguyen Van Phuc said that although the province was hard hit by the environmental incident caused by Formosa, it still enjoyed a rise in the number of visitors in 2016.
The province welcomed 3.25 million tourists, up 4.21 percent year on year. Among those were 1.052 million foreigners, an increase of 2.93 percent.
In 2017, the province will continue organising tourism promotion events in Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City and regional countries, creating new tourism products and upgrading infrastructure system in major tourist destinations to attract more visitors, he added.
The local tourism sector targets 3.7 million visitors with half of them foreigners in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 12 percent. It expects to earn 3.8 trillion VND (166.8 million USD) from tourism, up 15 percent against last year.