At a press briefing in Hanoi on April 23, Phan Huu Minh, head of the Tourism Promotion Department of the Vietnam Administration of Tourism said tourists from Southeast Asia countries increased sharply, by 64.9 percent to 39,000 from Thailand, by 76.2 percent to 35,000 from Malaysia and by 36.8 percent to 30,800 from Singapore.

Some main markets still remain dominant with high growth rates like the Republic of Korea (up 17.7 percent), the US (up 12 percent) and Japan (up 31.4 percent). In addition, the first quarter also saw a remarkable increase in the number of tourists to Vietnam from new emerging markets: 13,900 from Russia (up 42.9 percent) and 4,700 from Spain (up 95.8 percent).

More than 60 percent of foreign tourists came to Vietnam as holiday-makers, 16 percent visited relatives, 13.6 percent traveled on business and the rest pursued other interests.

Ho Chi Minh City received some 702,900 visitors and earned around VND4,800 billion, up 11.5 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Hanoi welcomed 788,400 visitors, an increase of 19.6 percent over the same period last year. Ba Ria-Vung Tau fetched VND269.7 billion in tourism revenue, up 14.6 percent compared to the same period last year.

Mr Minh said with the current high growth of tourism, Vietnam is expected to welcome around 4 million visitors in 2007.

Mr Minh further said the first quarter also saw promising signs of tourism investment with large joint-venture and foreign invested projects getting off the ground such as a four-star Spa resort in Vung Tau (US$5 million), Yen So Park in Hanoi (more than US$1 billion) and a luxury resort in Chan May –Lang Co Economic Zone (more than US$276 million).

By the end of March, Vietnam had 517 international travel agencies, including 93 State-owned enterprises, accounting for 18 percent, 125 joint-stock enterprises (24 percent), 11 joint-venture enterprises (2 percent), 284 limited companies (55 percent) and 4 private companies (1 percent). Online sales methods are being applied. Viettravel is selling tours and providing tourism information on its website: www.travel.com.vn