China’s travellers pivot to Vietnam, driving record arrivals

[HANOI] Vietnam welcomed a record number of foreign tourists in 2025, as a resurgence of Chinese visitors and relaxed visa policies helped lure travellers.

The South-east Asian nation received around 21.2 million international visitors last year, up 20 per cent, according to the National Statistics Office. Its previous peak was 18 million, recorded in 2019 before the pandemic.

Vietnam’s surge is part of a broader realignment in South-east Asia’s multi billion-US dollar tourism industry, largely at the expense of regional titan Thailand.

Visitors from China, Vietnam’s biggest source of tourists, climbed 41.3 per cent year on year to 5.3 million, topping the 4.5 million such visitors to Thailand, where the abduction of an actor and border war concerns led to a slide in Chinese traveller numbers.

Vietnam has implemented a range of measures to boost tourism, including 45-day visa-free waivers for citizens of some developed economies.

The policies have driven strong growth from Europe, with arrivals from Poland jumping 43 per cent and visitors from the UK, France and Italy each rising about a fifth from the previous year. Tourists from Russia rose 197 per cent.

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Vietnam is now among the world’s fastest growing destinations for tourists, alongside Brazil, Egypt, Japan and Ethiopia, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization. Visitors in these markets have surpassed 2019 levels, it said in a report.

The tourism sector generated more than one quadrillion dong (S$52.6 billion) in revenue last year.

For this year, Vietnam is aiming to attract 25 million foreign tourists and revenue of over 1.1 quadrillion dong, the tourism ministry said in a separate statement. BLOOMBERG