The number of international tourist arrivals to Vietnam in the third quarter of this year increased 14.9 percent against the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

However, the figure was still lower than those in the first and second quarters which stood at 30.9 percent and 23.1 percent, respectively. 

Between January and September, Vietnam welcomed some 11.61 million foreign holiday-makers, a year-on-year rise of 22.9 percent, with visitors by air, road and sea up 17.4 percent, 62.1 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. 

Tourists from Asia rose 27.2 percent; Europe, 9.8 percent; America, 12.5 percent; Oceania, 6.3 percent; and Africa, 19.5 percent. 

In September, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) conducted various activities in foreign markets in an effort to attract international vacationers. 

Also this month, the agency held tourism promotion activities for the first time in Canada on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties (1973-2018). 

Vietnam’s policies, destinations, tourism products and services for foreign tourists were introduced in the Canadian market. 

In Asia, apart from China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan record a high rise in the number of Canadian visitors, said the VNAT’s Tourism Marketing Department. 

The VNAT plans to team up with the US Travel Association and the Hanoi Promotion Agency to organise a tourism promotion programme in Washington DC and New York. 

The US has remained one of Vietnam’s top five tourism markets with the number of vacationers to the country exceeding 614,000 in 2017, up 11 percent against 2016. As of August 2018, Vietnam had served 486,000 US holiday-makers, a year-on-year increase of 14.5 percent.-VNA