Chinese visitors to Vietnam up 28.2% in 8 months

HANOI - Vietnam receives 3.4 million Chinese visitors from January to August, or 32.7 percent of the total international arrivals, seeing a year-on-year increase of 28.2 percent, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Vietnam hosted a total of 10.4 million international arrivals, up 22.8 percent year-on-year, with the highest growth of 52.4 percent in the number of visitors from South Korea, followed by Finland, up 34.3 percent, and China, up 28.2 percent.

Of the international arrivals in the first eight months of this year, over 8.4 million came to Vietnam by air, up 17.3 percent; roughly 1.8 million by road, up 62.1 percent; and 182,700 by sea, up 1.6 percent.

Meanwhile, over 8 million visitors were from Asia, up 27 percent; 1.4 million from Europe, up 9.8 percent; 636,400 from the Americas, mainly from the United States, up 12.6 percent; 300,700 from Oceania, up 7.4 percent, and 27,900 from Africa, up 20.4 percent.

Vietnam plans to receive 16-17 million foreign visitors and 78 million domestic ones, and gain tourism revenues of $27.5 billion this year, said the administration.