According to recent report on outbound travel trend released by Outbox Consulting, a Vietnamese tourism development consulting firm, 81.6% of respondents said that they have once planned trips to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea (RoK), China, Taiwan (China), and Japan, among others next year, Zing News reported.

Additionally, 52% Vietnamese traveled on their own to East Asian countries, mostly to the RoK.

Outbox Consulting conducted a survey on over a thousand Vietnamese who traveled abroad over the last 12 months and are planning to make outbound tours in the next year with ages ranging from 20 to 50.

According to the report, Vietnam's outbound tourism grows 10-15% annually. ASEAN Travel 2018 statistics revealed that if in 2012, Vietnamese made 4.8 million trips abroad, in 2018, the figure almost doubled to 8.6 million.

The outbound tourism growth rate is projected to reach 9.5% annually from this year to 2021 and its revenue will be mostly gained from households with incomes ranging from US$10,000 to US$30,000 per year.

A Vietnamese spends an average of VND5 million (US$216) to VND10 million (US$432) for each foreign trip while those traveling in tour packages are willing to spend VND10 million (US$432) to VND20 million (US$864).

Seventy percent of respondents said that souvenirs and local specialties are “must-buy” goods when travel abroad, cosmetics and fashion items are also preferred in the shopping lists of Vietnamese tourists.

Notably, cash is still the most favorable payment method among Vietnamese traveling abroad as up to 60.4% of them used US dollars or local currency rather than cards for payment.

In turn, the number of foreign holidaymakers to Vietnam in the first seven months of 2019 is estimated at 9.8 million, of those, Asian arrivals represented the biggest proportion and experienced a rapid growth pace, according to the monthly report from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO). Hanoitimes

Linh Pham