Tourists from the Americas make up the second-largest group of foreign arrivals in Vietnam.
According to the Vietnam General Statistics Office, in the first six months of 2019, tourists from Asia accounted for 77.43% of foreign visits to Vietnam, VietnamNet reports. Within this group, Chinese and South Korean tourists topped the list with 2,483,331 and 2,078,602 visitors, respectively.
These figures are followed by tourist numbers from Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. At 8.2%, Asia is also the region with the highest growth rate in terms of visits to Vietnam, while the number of tourists from Europe and the Americas also increased by 5.5% and 5.2%, respectively.
Compared to the same period last year, the number of tourists from China dropped by 3.3%. The second-largest market, South Korea, also a decrease in terms of growth rate — 21.3% compared to 60.7% last year.
This change might imply a shift in direction compared to tourism trends in recent years. A report conducted by the World Bank between 2015 and 2018 claimed that while Asia remains the biggest market for Vietnam's tourism sector, the number of tourists from China and South Korea skyrocketed.
However, this change hasn't increased the total revenue of the sector, according to Giao Duc. Chinese and South Korean tourists tend to stay in Vietnam for a shorter period of time compared to their European and American counterparts, making the average length of stay decrease from 11.3 days in 2013 to 10.2 days in 2017. Because of their short stays, Asian tourists also don't spend as much as western travelers on local tourism services.
[Photo via Istockphoto]
