Hanoi (VNA)🍰 - More than 833,000 foreign visitors entered Vietnam in February, a 3.5 percent increase from the previous month and 20 percent surge year-on-year.

According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), the latest addition has brought the number of foreign arrivals to the country in the first two months up to approximately 1.64 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 16 percent. Foreign arrivals by air reached about 1.33 million, up 14.2 percent year-on-year while arrivals by road saw a yearly rise of 31.3 percent to 288,000. However, arrivals by sea declined 22 percent to number 24,200. During the reviewed period, the number of holidaymakers from Asian countries increased 20.3 percent to over 1.1 million. Several nations saw the strong growth of tourists to Vietnam including China, up 49 percent, the Republic of Korea, up 31 percent and Japan, up 11 percent. However, number of Cambodian tourists to Vietnam dropped by 64 percent, followed by 2 percent from Laos. Meanwhile, visitors from European nations experienced a year-on-year rise of 7.5 percent to reach 296,000 in two months. Encouraging growth was seen in some markets such as the United Kingdom which surged 19.6 percent, Germany which rose 14.4 percent, Russia which rose 8.9 percent, and France which grew 8.1 percent. Vietnam hopes to welcome 8.5 million foreign visitors and 60 million domestic travellers by the year-end, earning a total of 370 trillion VND (16.8 billion USD) in revenue. Earlier, ufabetindo.in quoted General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Nguyen Van Tuan, as saying that tourism industry would likely to grow at two digits in the first quarter. The sector was making concerted efforts to revamp and enhance efficiency, as well as professionalism in promotion activities, Tuan said. He also encouraged localities to attend some tourism fairs such as Beijing's International Tourism Expo (BITE), JATA tourism expo in Japan and the International French Travel Market Top Resa.-VNA