Close to 7.3 million foreign tourists visited Vietnam in the first five months of 2019, up 8.8 percent against the same period last year.

Of the total, visitors from Asia made up the lion’s share at 76 percent, up nearly 10 percent year-on-year. Most of Vietnam’s key tourist markets in the region, including the Republic of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore, followed an upward trend. China, however, recorded a slight fall of 0.8 percent. Meanwhile, the number of tourists from Europe and America were estimated to have picked up by 5.9 and 4.9 percent from the same period last year, respectively. During the five-month period, the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam by air and road recorded increases while that of those travelling on waterways decreased. In May alone, over 1.3 million foreign holidaymakers travelled to Vietnam, down 9.7 percent from the previous month.–VNA