Number of international visitors to Vietnam surges in February

By Hoang Phong February 28, 2024 | 10:32 pm PT

A foreign tourist captures the scene of Nguyen Hue flower street in HCMC during the Tet holiday in February 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Tung

Vietnam received 1.53 million foreign tourists in February, up 1.3% from the previous month and 64.3% year-on-year.

South Korea continued to be its largest tourism market, with 426,000 arrivals, followed by mainland China (295,000), Taiwan (114,000) and the U.S. (80,129), according to the General Statistics Office.

Japan this month was restored as the fifth largest source with 46,742 after losing it to Australia last month.

Malaysia came in sixth position with 43,00.

With 41,000 visitors, Cambodia surpassed Thailand and Australia, both with 35,000 visitors, to become the seventh largest source of tourists, followed India (33,000).

In a move to boost international tourist arrivals, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh last week ordered immigration agencies to consider waiving visas for visits of six to 12 months for visitors of wealthy countries and expanding the list of countries whose citizens are exempt from visas.

Thailand received nearly 6 million foreign tourists in the first two months of this year, and it started permanently waiving visas for Chinese tourists from March.

Vietnam this year targets 18 million foreign tourists, the record number it achieved in 2019.