Foreign tourists are seen on Nguyen Van Binh book street in downtown HCMC.
Visitors from China and South Korea account for half of all international arrivals in Viet Nam

Data of the General Statistics Office shows that the country welcomed 11.6 million foreign visitors in the period, up 27.8% year-on-year.

South Korea was Viet Nam’s second biggest source market but posted the highest growth rate of 55.3% over the same period last year. Viet Nam had attracted nearly 2.2 million Koreans in the year to end-November.

According to travel firms and tourism promotion agencies, the market will continue growing in the coming time as Viet Nam is more attractive to Koreans, especially young people. Da Nang, HCMC and Ha Noi are the most popular tourist attractions for such guests.

Le Thi Thu Trang, marketing director of the Korea Tourism Organization in Viet Nam, said more Korean tourists have decided to visit Viet Nam instead of Thailand in their honeymoon trips.

Eight air carriers are operating flights between the two countries, and some of them have plans to increase flight frequencies and launch new services. Jeju Air, for example, will operate seven new weekly flights on the HCMC-Incheon route and five others on the Cam Ranh-Incheon route next month.

Data of the customs also shows that more than 3.59 million Chinese tourists came to Viet Nam this year to date, up 44.9% year-on-year. The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism has forecast the number of Chinese visitors might hit a record of more than four million this year.

In addition to China and South Korea, guests from Japan, Europe and Russia also surged in the 11-month period with 729,000, 1.71 million and 517,000 people, growing 7.7%, 17% and 34.8% against the year-ago period, respectively.

Viet Nam expects to welcome 13 million international visitors this year, up three million over last year.