International visitors to Vietnam hit record high, South Korea is the largest sending market

The number of international visitors to Vietnam in January 2024 reached over 1.5 million, up 10.3% over the previous month and up 73.6% over the same period in 2023.

This number is the highest since Vietnam reopened tourism from March 2022, equivalent to the number of international visitors to Vietnam in January 2019, before the pandemic.

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Number of international visitors to Vietnam by month in 2023 and January 2024 (thousand arrivals). (Source: Synthesized from data of the General Statistics Office)

Notably, by means of arrival, the number of visitors arriving by air reached 1.29 million, up 10.2% over the same period in 2019; the number of visitors arriving by sea reached 48.3 thousand, double that of the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of visitors arriving by road only reached 60% compared to the same period in 2019.

In terms of market size, South Korea continued to be the largest market sending visitors in January with 418 thousand arrivals (accounting for 27.6%), China ranked second, reaching 242 thousand arrivals, Taiwan-China (3rd): 84 thousand arrivals, the US (4th): 76 thousand arrivals.

In the following positions, the Australian market rose to 5th place with 62 thousand arrivals, Japan ranked 6th (61 thousand arrivals), Malaysia ranked 7th (49 thousand arrivals), India ranked 8th (46 thousand arrivals), Thailand ranked 9th (41 thousand arrivals) and Cambodia ranked 10th (37 thousand arrivals). The UK (294 thousand arrivals), France (241 thousand arrivals), Germany (228 thousand arrivals) and Russia (196 thousand arrivals) are the largest markets sending visitors to Vietnam in Europe.

By continent, Asia increased slightly by 4.3% compared to the previous month, while other regions grew strongly: Americas increased by 27.3%; Europe increased by 26.6%, Australia increased by 68.5% and Africa increased by 35.2%.

According to the guest sending market, the main growth drivers in January 2024 came from a number of major markets such as: South Korea increased by 12.2% compared to the previous month; China increased by 3.4%; the US increased sharply by 28.9%; Australia increased by a remarkable 67.7%.

In particular, January 2024 witnessed very good growth from European markets enjoying unilateral visa exemption policies such as: UK (+37.4%), France (+18.6%), Germany (+25.0%), Italy (+62.9%), Russia (+41.2%), Denmark (+74.1%), Sweden (+55.9%), Norway (+47.4%).

This growth shows the clear impact of the policy of increasing the stay period from 15 days to 45 days for 13 countries with unilateral visa exemption according to Resolution 128/NQ-CP of the Government, effective from August 15, 2023.

Thus, welcoming more than 1.5 million international visitors in the first month of 2024 is a very good sign for Vietnam's tourism industry, creating motivation and confidence to strive to achieve the goal of welcoming 17-18 million international visitors this year.

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