According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, in the first 5 months of 2019, Vietnam welcomed nearly 7.3 million arrivals, up 8.8 percent from a year ago, in which 5.7 million visitors arrived by air (up 6.3%), more than 1.4 million people arrived by road (up 23.7%) and 130 thousand people took the sea route (down 17.5%).

Most of the foreign tourists were from Asia, with the numbers rising 9.9 percent year-on-year to 5.6 million, accounting for 76.8 percent of the total. In particular, a slight decrease of 0.8 percent, China remained the biggest source of visitors with nearly 2.1 million, followed by South Korea, the second biggest market, which recorded a 22.4 percent increase to nearly 1.7 million. Nearly 389,000 visitors from Japan traveling to Vietnam with an increase of 13%; Taiwan (China) demonstrated an increase of 26% with 357,200 t visitors; visitors from Malaysia reached 252,500, up 14.5%. Neighboring Thailand topped the growth of foreign tourist arrivals in the first five months of this year at a whopping 47.5 percent year-on-year, reaching 215,700 while Singapore had the least number of international visitor arrivals with only 116,600, an increase of 3,4%.

With more than one million, the number of tourists from European market grew by 5.9 percent from a year ago. In particular, a slight increase of 5.9 percent was seen in the number of tourists from the Russian Federation with 319,700, followed by the United Kingdom, which recorded a 5.7 percent increase to nearly 146,300. Nearly 141,900 visitors from France traveling to Vietnam with an increase of 1.5%; Germany demonstrated an increase of 6.1% with 108,400 visitors; visitors from Italia reached 33,500, up 11.4% while this number from Sweden was 33,100, an increase of 8.3%. Netherlands had the least number of international visitor arrivals with 32,500, up 4.6%.

Visitors from the Americas reached 441,600, an increase of 4.9% over the same period last year. Specifically, visitors from the United States reached 329,200, up 6%. The number of tourists from the Australian market reached 196,200, an increase of 1.5%, of which visitors from Australia were 175,600, a slight increase of 0.6%. As for Africa, tourists from this region achieved a number of 19,700, up 9.2% over the same period in 2018.