Vietnam among top 20 favorite countries to visit: Condé Nast Traveler

By Nguyen Quy October 8, 2020 | 01:42 am PT

An aerial view of Hon Thom Island in Kien Giang Province, southern Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Khanh Tran.

Vietnam has jumped one place from last year to ninth in British magazine Condé Nast Traveler's 2020 list of 20 most favorite countries for travelers.

For its annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey, the travel magazine asked readers to rate their favorite countries across the globe, attracting a record 600,000 votes. The listing, released Wednesday, was based on a scoring system representing overall average levels of satisfaction.

Vietnam scored 92.12 percent to rank behind Southeast Asian neighbors like Indonesia (6th) with 92.98 and Thailand (7th) with 92.62.

For the second time in a row, Italy topped the best countries in the world, followed by Sri Lanka, and Portugal, Japan and Greece rounded out the top five.

"The best time to visit Vietnam is between April and June when the north emerges from its chilly winter season," the magazine said.

In central Vietnam, Hoi An and Hue are at their best between March and August when the skies are blue and the lukewarm seawater makes the nearby shores great for beach holidays, it wrote.

A little further south, the beaches of Nha Trang and Quy Nhon can be visited almost every month, but encounter the occasional downpour between October and December, Condé Nast Traveler added.

Flyboarders show off their skill at a performance last April at the Ghenh Rang - Tien Sa Tourism Area in Quy Nhon Town, 2020. Photo by Nguyen Tien Trinh.

Flyboarders show off their skills at Ghenh Rang - Tien Sa Tourism Area in Quy Nhon Town, 2020. Photo by Nguyen Tien Trinh.

In the category of hotels, the survey shows that four Vietnamese hotels were among top 20 in Asia based on the votes of 715,000 readers around the world.

Azerai La Residence in the central town of Hue came in ninth while Sofitel Legend Metropole in Hanoi ranked 11th. JW Marriott Hotel, also in Hanoi, was at 13th while InterContinental Hanoi Landmark 72 came in 15th.

The number of international visitors to Vietnam soared from 10 million in 2016 to 18 million in 2019, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism reported. With Covid-19 travel restrictions, the country's January-September intake of foreign tourists dropped 70 percent year-on-year to 3.78 million, the lowest since 2015.

Though the government allowed the resumption of some international commercial flights, foreign tourists have yet to be allowed back into the country.