The number of international visitors to Vietnam in the first months of this year has risen sharply. The country has been put in the list of the top Asian countries with strong tourism performance in the first half of the year by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
Vietnam reached the growth rate of more than 30 percent in the low season. The UNWTO has highly appreciated the quick recovery of Vietnam after the global financial crisis in 2009.
According to the National Statistics Department, the number of international tourists was 383,500 in September, a year-on-year increase of 26 percent.
The total number of foreign visitors in the first months of the year was more than 3.7 million, up 34 percent from last year.
China and ASEAN countries are in the list of Vietnam’s top ten tourism markets.
The country expects to receive 5 million international travelers in 2010 and 5.5 million in 2011.
In addition, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) have recently signed a cooperation agreement targeting at around 1 million visitors to the two countries from now until 2015 in the HCM City’s International Travel Expo 2010 last week.
Until the July, 240,000 Vietnamese visited Thailand while over 120,000 tourists from Thailand visited Vietnam.
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