According to a new report, Australian tourists were the biggest spenders last year 2018 while they were in Vietnam.
Each Australian tourist spent VND36.6 million ($1,570) while traveling in Vietnam last year, followed by Russian tourists and American tourists, South Korean and Brits.
Chiness tourist were also in the top spenders, higher than tourists from Malaysia and Thailand.
Australia has always been among Vietnam’s top 10 feeder markets. With the new option to get Vietnam visa, Australian can apply an e-visa and get e-visa for tourist single entry after 3 working days process.
The country welcomed 387,000 Australian tourists last year, a year-on-year increase of 4.5 percent.
Vietnam is in the midst of a tourism boom with a record high 15.5 million foreign arrivals in 2018, up 20 percent year-on-year. Last year, the country raked in revenues of VND383 trillion ($16.5 billion) from foreign visitors, accounting for 60 percent of total tourism revenues, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).
Tourism last year contributed 8.39 percent to the country’s GDP. The government has targeted making the industry an economic spearhead.
With visa waivers for several countries in Asia and Europe, the tourism industry hopes to welcome around 20 million foreign visitors in 2020. It expects to earn $35 billion in revenues per year by 2020, contributing 10 percent to the country’s GDP.
The government has stepped up efforts to influence foreign tourists into returning to the country through relaxed visa policies and other incentives.
Based on the average annual growth rate of foreign arrivals, Vietnam is forecast to become a leading travel destination in the next five years, according to the latest Asia Pacific Visitor Forecasts 2019 – 2023 report released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).
