Chinese visitor numbers see slight H1 fall

Vietnam could lose long holiday tourists to Indonesia and Thailand because of its complicated visa procedures, industry insiders say.

Visa waivers for select countries have proved effective and should be extended.

Visitor numbers have spiked to 8 million.

On June 30, the Vietnamese government issued a decree extending visa exemptions for tourists from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, reported the Vietnam News Agency.

Vietnam welcomed some 4.7 million foreign visitors in the first six months of this year, up 21.3 percent from the same period last year, according to data released on Monday by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

As visa exemptions for five countries in Western Europe have become effective, the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam has jumped by 30 percent on-year, the General Statistics Office said today.

U.S. citizens will soon be able to enter Vietnam on a one-year visa rather than a three-month visa after Vietnamese legislators agreed to extend the validity of temporary visas for American citizens at a meeting this morning.