Foreign arrivals up 7.5% in January

The General Statistics Office (GSO) reported nearly 476,000 came on holiday (up 20%), 131,078 arrived on business (up 18%), 128,363 visited their relatives (up 25.5%) and the remainder travelled for other purposes (up 26.4%).

China topped the list of countries having the highest number of visitors to Vietnam (158,700), closely followed by Japan (57,800), the US (51,800), Russia (48.6), Australia (46,300), Taiwan (31,500), Cambodia (31,300), Malaysia (25,700), and Thailand (24,100).

However, foreign arrivals from Laos fell 17.3%, Finland 2.85%, the Republic of Korea 2.4% and Indonesia 2.1%.

The tourism industry aims to welcome 8 foreign visitors and 40 million domestic holidaymakers in 2014 to earn VND220 trillion in revenue.