The number of tourists from Russia, a major tourism market for Vietnam, has been rising again since the last few months of 2015, despite the country’s economic difficulties.

The number of Russian visitors to Vietnam this month touched 42,909, a year-on-year increase of 23.7 per cent.

The sector also saw encouraging rise in the number of European nationalities, who are allowed to enter Vietnam without visas, the administration under the culture, sports and tourism ministry said.

The number of tourists from Italy increased by 71.4 per cent, as compared with the previous month and by 28.8 per cent year-on-year.

The number of visitors from the United Kingdom rose 20.6 per cent, from Germany by 16 per cent, from Spain by 14.3 per cent and from France by 9.9 per cent.

The arrivals from Laos and Cambodia fell, while those from Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore saw significant growths of 16 per cent, 31 per cent and 13.3 per cent, respectively.

VNAT is hoping to welcome 8.5 million foreign tourists this year and handle 60 million domestic visitors, earning VND370.000 billion (US$16.6 billion) in revenue.

The Vietnam News Agency quoted VNAT Director Nguyen Van Tuan as saying that the country’s tourism sector was expected to achieve positive two-digit growth in the first quarter of this year.

The whole travel industry would try to improve efficiency and professionalism in promotion efforts, particularly to implement the tourism marketing strategy of Vietnam, he said.

The ministry has developed and promoted the tourism plan for 2016 among localities and enterprises right from the beginning of the year and has mobilised resources and key tourism localities in several events.

For example, the Hanoi department of tourism will participate in international tourism fairs such as the Beijing International Tourism Expo (BITE) in Beijing in June, JATA tourism expo in Tokyo in September and the International French Travel Market Top Resa in Paris in September.

A part of the framework of the 2016 ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF), which took place from January 18 to 25 in Manila, the Philippines, VNAT co-operated with localities and enterprises to participate in ATF TRAVEX, the longest-running annual ASEAN leisure travel trade event.

More and more partners showed keenness, via the event, in bringing European tourists to Vietnam.

Luxury travel and exploration of nature and culture are the most popular tourism products among Europeans.