Việt Nam tourism sky rockets with arrival of 6.6 million international visitors in 7 months

Monday, July 31, 2023

According to the most recent report from the General Statistics Office, Vietnam received more than 6.6 million foreign tourists in the first seven months of 2023, exceeding the goal for the year by 83%.

Even though Viet Nam completely restarted its international tourism operations on March 15 2022, the number still only reached 67.5% of the arrivals witnessed in the same period in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is 6.9 times higher than that of 2022.

Over one million international arrivals were recorded in July alone, marking the first month of the year to accomplish this feat and a 6.5% increase over June.6.6 million tourists visited Viet Nam, of which 87.6% arrived by air (5.8 million), 11.6% by road (765,300), and 0.8% by sea (55,100).

Even though it’s obvious that the number of foreign visitors hasn’t yet reached pre-pandemic levels, the Viet Nam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) stated that the industry anticipated to soon reach its yearly target – set before China announced its reopening plans – as the second half of the year is typically the busiest for foreign visitors.

With 1.9 million tourists, South Korea continued to be the greatest source market for Vietnamese tourism in the first seven months of this year, making up one-third of all foreign travelers to Vietnam. China (738,000) and the United States (445,000) came next.

The top ten source markets for tourism to Vietnam include three countries in Southeast Asia—Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia—and four in Northeast Asia—South Korea, China, Taiwan (China), and Japan. At nine and ten were Australia and India, respectively.

The three greatest source markets in Europe were the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
While Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia experienced declines last month, many of Vietnam’s major tourist source markets, including Taiwan (31.3%), Japan (15%), mainland China (14%) the US (7%) and South Korea (6%) showed rise in July.

The sector also provided services to 76.5 million domestic tourists in the first seven months, including 12.5 million in July (the busiest summer vacation month). Domestic tourism generated VN416.6 trillion ($17.58 billion) in total income.

The revenue from lodging and eating services has increased significantly in several communities over the last seven months.

In terms of growth, á Nng City saw an increase of 40.3%, followed by Cn Th with 27.2%, ng Nai with 23.6%, HCM City with 23.4%, Qung Ninh with 21.8%, Hi Phng with 14.4%, and Hà Ni with 11.8. These are all major tourist destinations in the nation.

According to VNAT, the country’s tourism industry requires 40,000 new personnel each year and 25,000 people need to be re-trained at the current rate of growth. Only 20,000 students are annually trained in local schools. Only 43% of those employed in the business have professional training in the field of tourism, and over half of those do not speak another language.

Additionally, Vietnamese labor in the hospitality and tourism sectors continue to be of low quality and productivity.

Vietnamese tourist workers today compete with foreign workers from Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, thus Vietnam must prioritize enhancing the quality of its human resources in the near future.

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