“Like its industry, agriculture and diplomacy, its tourism is now firmly on the map,” the magazine said in a recent article.

The magazine quoted the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) as saying in the latest annual survey that Vietnam moved up from sixth to fourth place in the league table of the world's fastest-growing destinations. Last year it had 4.2 million foreign visitors, 16 percent more than in 2006. After the backpackers and a few nostalgic American war veterans, tourists with fatter wallets are now arriving in large numbers.

A fair chunk of the foreign investment currently pouring into Vietnam is going into new hotels, resorts and golf courses, many aiming at the top end of the market, the magazine added.

It attributed the country’s attraction not only to endless stretching and untouched beaches, but also to ancient civilisations such as the vanished Hindu Champa culture; quaint tribal villages with wooden stilt-houses, colourful festivals and craftwork, historic cities and churches from French colonial times; war sites like the Cu Chi tunnels and the grisly but informative museum on the site of the My Lai massacre; and enormous potential for ecotourism, with many new species still being discovered in the remote forested mountains.