HCMC – Over 196,000 tourists from South Korea visited Vietnam in the first seven months of the year, making the former the latter’s biggest tourism source market during the period.
The high return of South Korean travelers to Vietnam was attributed to the resumption of air services between the two countries.
Besides, local airlines raised the number of flights from Seoul in South Korea to Hanoi, HCMC and Danang to entice South Korean visitors back to Vietnam.
Between January and July, as many as 954,600 international tourists traveled to Vietnam, down 90.3% against the same period in 2019.
In addition to South Korea, other major source markets were the United States and Asian nations.
Before the pandemic, China was always the country’s largest source market, followed by South Korea. However, China has yet to allow its residents to travel abroad due to fears of the Covid spread, so South Korea overtook the former to top the list of Vietnam’s major source markets during the seven-month period of this year.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism is working with the Tourism Development Support Fund and many travel firms and air carriers to roll out numerous tourism promotion programs in various countries, mainly in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe, to attract travelers.
The representatives of the Vietnamese tourism sector will attend JATA Tourism Expo Japan 2022 from September 22 to 25 and the World Travel Market in the United Kingdom between September 7 and 9.
This year, Vietnam looks to welcome some five million international tourists. However, given the foreign arrivals between January and July, the country is seen tough to fulfill the target.
Nguyen Quoc Ky, chairman of Vietravel Holdings, said that some major source markets such as Japan and China are still applying stringent Covid measures, slowing down Vietnam’s recovery of the international tourism segment.
Besides, rising air fares and obstacles over visa procedures have deterred foreign tourists from visiting Vietnam, said Ky.
Mauro Gasparotti, director of Asia-Pacific Savills Hotels, said in a report released on August 5 that three factors hindering the country’s international tourism segment are inflation, high air fares and the slow tourism recovery in China and Russia.
