Foreign visitors to Vietnam down more than 640,000 due to Covid-19

The number of international visitors to Vietnam and Vietnamese people travelling abroad in January and February 2020.

In February, Vietnam had a foreign tourist arrival figure of 1,237,622 and 705,570 Vietnamese people travelled aboard.

Compared to January, there was a decrease of 634,108 foreign visitors coming to Vietnam (a decrease of 3.88 percent); down 287,844 Vietnamese people travelling abroad (falling 28.98 percent).

Meanwhile, in January (from December 15, 2019 to January 14, 2020), the number of international visitors to Vietnam and Vietnamese people travelling abroad rose compared to December 2019.

In particular, 1,871,730 foreign visitors came to Vietnam; 993,414 Vietnamese people travelled abroad. Compared to December of 2019, there was an increase of 131,585 foreigners coming to Vietnam (increasing by 7.56 percent); an increase of 25,743 Vietnamese people going abroad (increasing by 2.66 percent).

The sharp decrease in number of international visitors coming to Vietnam is understandable as the Covid-19 epidemic is developing complicatedly in many countries and territories, including traditional markets with lot of tourists coming to Vietnam like China, South Korea and Japan.

However, statistics of February are calculated on a cyclical basis (January 15 to February 14) coinciding with Tet holiday in 2020 and this period is less impactful than the second half of February due to the Covid-19 epidemic, so the number of foreign visitors coming to Vietnam is likely to decrease even more dramatically in March.