December 26, 2016 | 21:02 (GMT+7)
Vietnam welcomes 10 millionth foreign visitor this year
PANO - The tourism sector received the 10 millionth foreign visitor to Vietnam on December 25 at the Phu Quoc International Airport in Kien Giang province.
Addressing the event, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Ngoc Thien thanked international visitors for choosing Vietnam as their destination and promised to create favorable conditions for visitors and to continue improving service quality.
The UK visitor named Michael Tonge was the 10 millionth foreigner to visit Vietnam this year and the 9,999,999th and the 10,000,001st ones were from Germany and Sweden respectively.
The event marked the highest number of international tourists to Vietnam within a year and the growth of the tourism sector, as well as its contributions to national socio-economic development.
Next year, the tourism sector is expected to welcome 11.5 million foreign visitors to get a revenue of VND 460 trillion (USD 20.24 billion). Tourism is striving to become a key economic sector of the country by 2020.
Translated by Lam Anh