An Indian tourist wants to buy souvenir products at a booth on the walking street near Hoàn Kiếm Lake. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI– An average monthly rise of 51 per cent was seen in the number of Indian tourists to Việt Nam in the first 10 months of this year, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

The administration reported that Việt Nam welcomed 20,681 Indian visitors in October and 82,066 in the first 10 months of 2022. Since July, the number of Indian tourists to Việt Nam each month surpassed the figures recorded in 2019.

Web searches for Vietnamese destinations from the Indian market were rising quickly, with the volume in October increasing three folds compared to that in July and doubling that in August. The most searched destinations were Hà Nội, HCM City, Phú Quốc, Đà Nẵng, and Quy Nhơn.

The agency attributed the rise to the results of tourism promotion activities in the Indian market, along with the launching of many direct air routes linking the two countries.

In October, the number of foreign tourists rose 12.1 per cent over the previous month. Tourism revenue in the January-October period reached VNĐ425 trillion (US$17.08 billion), equivalent to 74 per cent of that in the same period of 2019. The Republic of Korea topped the number of tourists to Việt Nam with 26.3 per cent of the total arrivals.

Data from the travel tracking tool Google Destination Insights showed that the number of international searches for tourist accommodations in Vietnam in October continued to increase about 20 per cent compared to September 2022 and 11 times over March.

The top 10 countries with the highest searches for Việt Nam tourism were the US, Australia, Singapore, India, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the UK, Malaysia, Thailand and Germany, while the top 10 most searched destinations in Việt Nam included HCM City, Hà Nội, and Đà Nẵng.

In October, the administration issued licences to 70 travel firms to operate international tours, raising their number so far this year to 2,816.

At the same time, the global ranking of VNAT’s website vietnam.travel was advanced to 166,985th position from 458,550th in 2021. -- VNS