A good start to the Vietnam's tourism industry in 2012
With a nation-wide theme of "Heritage Tourism" this year, Viet Nam travel agency is expected to experience an increase of tourists and strong competition with other countries in the region, said General Director of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Nguyen Van Tuan.
During the Tet holiday, the number of international and local tourists to Ha Noi increased, according to the city's Culture, Sport and Tourism Department, adding that the number of overseas Vietnamese who visited Viet Nam for the Tet holiday rose dramatically due to visa exemptions.
Non-Vietnamese arrivals reached 183,000, up 16% over the same period last year, while overseas Vietnamese arrivals totalled nearly 700,000 people. The department also predicted the number of tourists from traditional markets including China, Japan, France, Australia, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries would increase in the first quarter of the year.
Domestic tourist numbers to Ha Noi during the Tet holiday rose 40 per cent over the same period last year or about 1.8 million visitors. The Huong (Perfume) Pagoda festival and the Thang Long Imperial Citadel relic site attracted the largest number of tourists.
The ancient capital of Hue in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue also welcomed 51,000 tourists, a 40 per cent increase during the one-week Tet holiday against last year's figures. As a result, the city's tourism industry made a turnover of more than VND23 billion (about US$1.1 million) during the week.
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