eTN Asia, 25-10-2006
Following the formation of the Vietnamese – Japanese Tourism Cooperation Committee, responsible for promoting the cooperation between the two countries in the field of tourism, last year, the two nations are working upon plans to provide fillip to tourism industry in Vietnam.Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) is diligently working on its plans to increase the number of Japanese tourists coming to Vietnam to 500,000 in 2007.
According to VNAT’s statistics, Japan has been consistently among the top five markets which provide the largest number of tourists for Vietnam. In 2002, 275,000 Japanese tourists arrived in Vietnam accounting for 10.5 percent of the total number of international tourists coming to the country. However in 2003, as affected by SARS, the number saw a downfall to only 208,800 visitors. With the facilitation of visa exemptions, the number of Japanese tourists increased to 267,210 in 2004, 338,509 in 2005 and during the first eight months of 2006 the number reached 234,973.
The development comes at a stage when Vietnamese and Japanese leaders of tourism agreed to further intensify cooperation in tourism as written in a joint-declaration made before.
In the latest round of talks, according to Mme Vo Thi Thang, general director, VNAT, the administration has urged its Japanese counterpart to upgrade current Japanese websites on Vietnam tourism together with launching more websites in Japanese language to advertise Vietnam’s tourism in Japan.
