(TITC) – According to the General Statistics Office, international visitors to Viet Nam in July estimated 564,736 arrivals (up 4.6% over last month) which added to the total number of 4,852,621 in the first 7 months of 2014 (up 15.6% over the same period last year).
This was a positive signal for the tourism sector after experiencing negative growth in the last 2 months resulted by the illegal China’s placement of drilling rig HD 981 in Vietnamese waters since early May.
Of the total, visitors for leisure and tourism estimated 2,929,610 arrivals (+13.9%), for business: 815,811 (+16.1%), for visiting relatives: 836,388 (+19.5%), and other purposes: 270,813 (+21.1%).
Most of source markets recorded positive growth in the first 7 months, e.g Hong Kong (+111.3%), Germany (+99.4%), Russia (+27.0%), Laos (+26.7%), Cambodia (+23.0%)… Slight growth was seen in some other key markets, including Taiwan (+8.1%), Japan (+6.9%), USA (+5.9%), France (+5.8%), South Korea (+5.2%), Australia (+4.8)...
In 2014, tourism sector has set the target of receiving 8-8.2 million international arrivals and 37.5 domestic trippers, tourism receipts of VND 240,000 billions.
Series of responsive actions have been implemented by tourism sector to ensure fulfillment of the target. A new resolution on developing tourism is expected to be approved by the Government this August, which would help strengthen tourism promotion and investment. The sector has also been focusing on promoting some big source markets with high spendings and long stays. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism was reported having submitted proposal to the Prime Minister on extending validation of visa exemption from 15 days to 30 days for citizens of some key markets, including Russia.
Pham Thanh