Statistics on Tourists Returning to Vietnam Clarified by EU Program

Statistics on Tourists Returning to Vietnam Clarified by EU Program

A survey on the number of tourists returning to Vietnam resulted in a misunderstanding. This is according to the management board of Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme, an EU-funded program which conducted the said survey.

  The project is an 11 million EUR program which took into action from 2011-2015. It is the biggest technical assistance program aiding the tourism sector of Vietnam by implementing particular regulations for “responsible tourism.” The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism are both assigned to run the project in the country.

  The survey was done on March-April and July-August of this year on 600 English-speaking domestic and foreign tourists in five tourist destinations in the country: Sa Pa in the Northern mountainous province of Lao Cai; Ha Long Bay in the Northern province of Quang Ninh; the central cities of Hue and Da Nang; and Hoi An ancient town in the central province of Quang Ngai. 90% of the international respondents were first-time visitors.

  But according to an expert from the same program, the 6% result failed to factor in non-English speaking tourists, including the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and French nationals. The figure also does not represent the status of tourists who did not go to the mentioned tourist spots.

  Furthermore, the survey showed that third-time visitors make up 2% of the whole number, while those who came back to Vietnam four times cover 3.2%. 2014 reflected 11.2% of tourists who returned to the country.

  The General Department of Statistics gathered a different outcome, displaying 34% of returning international tourists to Vietnam in 2013. 66.1% foreigners are first-time visitors, 20.1% came back the second time, while 13.8% returned for the third time.