HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam welcomed 3.2 million foreign tourists in the first three months of the year, up by 29 per cent against the same period last year.

This was announced by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on Tuesday.

In term of markets, the highest number of people visiting Việt Nam was from Asia from January to March with 2.3 million people, followed by Europe with nearly 560,000 people.

The American region ranked third with 247,000 visitors.

The number of Asian visitors in the three months was 34 per cent higher than the figure in the corresponding period last year.

If categorised by means of transport, people traveling by air to Việt Nam accounted for 82 per cent. Although the percentage of visitors coming to the country by sea was the least (making up merely 3.5 per cent), the absolute number saw the highest surge of 66 per cent year-on-year.

In March alone, more than one million foreign visitors came to the country, representing a month-on-month decrease of 16 per cent but a year-on-year rise of 21 per cent.

These were good results and were largely thanks to the efforts made by the tourism sector, according to the VNAT.

Since the beginning of the year, the tourism sector has actively participated in tourism promotion and co-operation activities abroad, including the ASEAN-China Tourism Co-operation Year 2017 in the Philippines from March 15 to17. The event was expected to enhance tourism and people-to-people exchange between the two sides.

Under the framework of the event, VNAT general director Nguyễn Văn Tuấn and his Chinese counterpart Li Jinzao discussed measures to boost tourism co-operation between the two countries.

Also in March, Việt Nam participated in the Moscow International Travel and Tourism Fair (MITT) – one of the five largest tourism fairs in the world -- which attracted the participation of nearly 2,000 travel companies from 158 countries and territories.

At the fair, Việt Nam introduced attractive tourism destinations, forms and activities as part of its National Tourism Year 2017 and updated information related to tourism co-operation between Viet Nam and Russia, as well as introduced new, specific tourism products for the Russian market.

The results will lay a foundation for the tourism sector to realise its target of receiving 11.5 million foreign tourists and serving 66 million domestic visitors, earning total revenue of VNĐ460 trillion (US$20.4 billion) this year. — VNS