International tourists cross a street in downtown HCMC. The international tourism segment reportedly contributed a larger proportion to the tourism sector’s revenue

Last year, the nation welcomed 15.5 million international tourists and served 80 million domestic visitors, according to the latest statistics of the administration.

The statistics also show that the country’s tourism sector made VND637 trillion in revenue in 2018, up 17.7% against 2017. Of the figure, international tourists contributed 61.1% of the total tourism revenue, amounting to VND383 trillion, whereas the revenue from the domestic tourist segment made up 39.9% of the total.

Visitors from China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the United States, Russia, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand and Great Britain to Vietnam brought 78.2% of the total revenue obtained by the international tourism segment.

The two largest source markets, China and South Korea, accounted for half of the total earnings from this segment, contributing 24.7% and 24%, respectively, to the total.

However, the average spending of each tourist from China and South Korea was reportedly lower than that of travelers from the United States, Russia and Australia. For example, each Australian tourist to Vietnam spent over VND36.6 million on average, twice the expenditure of each Chinese visitor.

The tourism sector contributed 15.6% to the nation’s gross domestic product in 2018. SGT

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