Hanoi starts welcoming more visitors

The number of tourists to Hanoi in May reached 258,000, including 12,000 foreigners, a sign of recovery after the social distancing period due to COVID-19.

At the Ly Thai To Square in downtown Hanoi (Photo: VNA)

The number of tourists to Hanoi in May reached 258,000, including 12,000 foreigners, a sign of recovery after the social distancing period due to COVID-19.

Most of the foreigners came to the capital for diplomatic or working purposes.

The average occupation rate of local hotels was estimated at 19.26 percent, up 6.46 percent from April.

Between January and May, Hanoi’s tourism sector earned over 16.6 trillion VND (714.99 million USD), a deep reduction compared to the same period last year. However, it was still an encouraging figure, as both the country’s and global economies have been impacted by the pandemic.

To boost the local market, tourism businesses have been requested to launch programmes to stimulate tourism demand, improve services quality, and apply more technological advances in management.

There are 3,499 tourist accommodation facilities with 60,782 rooms in Hanoi. Among them, 66 hotels with 9,953 rooms have three to five star ratings, and eight condotels with 1,534 rooms have four or five star ratings.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, international tourist arrivals to Vietnam in the first five months of this year totalled 3.7 million while the number of domestic holidaymakers stood at 16 million, down 50 percent and 58.5 percent, respectively, from the same period last year.

Revenue from tourism plunged over 47 percent to 150.3 trillion VND (6.47 billion USD)./.

VNA