Vietnam receives more foreign visitors in first 8 months,

Vietnam welcomed over 2.3 million foreign visitors in the January-August period, posting a tidy year-on-year rise of 22.7 percent. In the period, the country’s biggest source market is China with 527,140 visitors, followed by the US with 230, 940, and South Korea with 211,510, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) told Xinhua Monday. Among the 2.3 million arrivals, the number of tourists surged the most -- by 34.6 percent to nearly 1.4 million, while that of business visitors dropped 8.6 percent to nearly 304,150. Vietnam is expected to host 3.4 million international arrivals this year, up 17.2 percent annually while the number of local visitor is expected to rise 17.6 percent to reach 16 million, according to VNAT. The country is forecast to earn VND33 trillion (US$ 2.1 billion) from tourism services in 2005. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has recently forecast that Vietnam will receive 3.36 million foreign arrivals in 2005, 3.64 million in 2006 and 3.89 million in 2007. The totals would account for 5. 87 percent, 5.8 percent, and 5.75 percent of the total visitors to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), respectively. Vietnam, in the next three years, will rank fifth in attracting foreign visitors among ASEAN members, after Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia, PATA noted. Five other members of the grouping are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines.