Foreign visitors to Hanoi.
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Vietnam welcomed more than 11.6 million international tourists in 2017, not yet counting December, a year-on-year rise of 27.8 percent. Meanwhile, Vietnam tourism also welcomed 68 million domestic visitors, in which 33.2 million long stay tourists, reaching more than VND 461 billion, a year-on-year rise of 25.2 percent
During the aforementioned period, the number of holidaymakers from Asian countries increased 32.6% compared to the same period last year. Several nations saw the strong growth of tourists to Vietnam including China, up 44.9%; the Republic of Korea, up 55.3%; Japan, up 7.7%; Taiwan (China), up 20.9%; and Malaysia, up 16.5%.
Meanwhile, visitors from European nations experienced a year-on-year rise of 17%. Encouraging growth was seen in some markets such as Russia which surged 34.8%, the United Kingdom rose 11.3%; Spain, up 19.8%; and Italy which grew 12.8%.
The administration chose 2017 as the Travel Year with an aim to enhance service quality of travel agencies and government’s management over travel operation. Accordingly, it focused on advertising work and providing trainings to improve human resources quality. Vietnam aims to serve 13 million international tourists in 2017.
Accordingly, the Vietnam Tourism Development Fund (VTDF) will have an initial charter capital of VND300 billion (US$13.22 million) from the State budget, according to a draft decision on the establishment and operation of the fund.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism are drafting the decision on the establishment and operation of the fund in accordance with Article 70 of the 2017 Tourism Law.
According to the draft, the fund is a non-state financial fund which has the function of managing and coordinating the fund's financial resources for tourism development activities in Vietnam.
The fund, which is under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will receive state budget capital and other financial sources at home and abroad according to the legal regulations.
Besides VND300 billion from the State budget, the fund's capital source will also include 2-10 percent of the country’s total visa fees; 3-5 percent of total tourism fees, contributions from tourism enterprises, organizations, individuals and other sources under the law.
