HANOI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam hosted nearly 12.9 million international arrivals in the first nine months of this year, surging 10.8 percent against the same period last year, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism on Monday.
Between January and September, nearly 10.2 million foreign visitors to Vietnam are from Asia, up 12.5 percent; over 1.6 million from Europe, up 5.3 percent; 737,800 from the Americas, mainly from the United States, up 6.8 percent; 329,200 from Oceania, mostly from Australia, down 1 percent; and 34,500 from Africa, up 10.8 percent.
Specifically, Vietnam received roughly 4 million Chinese visitors, increasing 4.4 percent, and accounting for 30.9 percent of the total international arrivals in the nine-month period, said the administration.
Vietnam, which hosted roughly 15.5 million international arrivals, including nearly 5 million Chinese visitors, last year, expects to welcome 17.5-18 million foreign visitors and 85 million domestic travelers and to gain total tourism revenues of about 700 trillion Vietnamese dong (30.4 billion U.S. dollars) this year.
