Vietnam tourism is booming!

Came across this piece of news below which is once again confirming that people are visiting Vietnam further, even tough inflation rate is now at staggering 25%. It will be interesting to see if this trend will continue also next year once hotels have increased their room rates by this margin, which will make Vietnam compared to their neighbouring countries a pretty expensive place to visit.

Tourists to Vietnam, international arrivals in Vietnam rose 16.6 percent to 2.1 million in the first five months of the year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said.

Chinese visitors continue to take the lead with 352,000 arrivals, rising by 54 percent, followed by 114,000 Filipinos, up by 42 percent. Thailand ranks third with 87,600 visitors, up by 32 percent. Swiss, Finnish and Hong Kong tourists came in small groups but were big spenders during their travels throughout the country, the GSO reported. GSO said world-heritage site Halong Bay remains the most popular destination for international tourists and cited visits by cruises bringing more than 4,000 foreign holidaymakers on April 29 alone. Currently hotels in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and central Nha Trang city have 80 percent of their rooms occupied.

(Source: VNA, URL: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/travel/2008/05/785754/)