Foreign arrivals jump 4.5-fold in five months

Foreign arrivals to Vietnam jumped 70.6 percent month-on-month in May, following the removal of travel restrictions and over two weeks of SEA Games 31 competitions, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Tourists enjoy the sunset on Long Beach in the resort island of Phu Quoc

The May figure was 12.8 times higher than that of the same month last year, the GSO said.

The number of international visitors rose 4.5-fold year-on-year in the first five months of 2022 but was still 95 percent lower than the pre-pandemic corresponding period of 2019.

A majority of the foreigners (87.8 percent) travelled to Vietnam by air from January-May.

Five-month earnings from tourism surged 34.7 percent against a year earlier as a result of strong recovery of tourism activities and SEA Games 31, the region’s largest sports event which attracted thousands of athletes, coaches, officials and spectators from other Southeast Asian countries.

Vietnam has moved up eight places on the 2021 Tourism and Travel Development Index (TTDI), according to a report recently released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The country experienced the greatest score improvement, rising by 4.7 percent to leap from 60th to 52nd on the overall index.

Indonesia and Saudi Arabia also had great improvements in rank, with an increase of 3.4 percent to the 32nd place and 2.3 percent to the 33rd place, respectively, the report said.

The WEF report shows that Vietnam’s improved rankings have resulted from its achievements in COVID-19 prevention, measures of safe and flexible adaptation to the pandemic, and continuous efforts to develop safe tourism./.

VNA