The rocketing number of Chinese tourists coming to Vietnam in the first half of the year was putting pressure on the tourism industry, the authority in charge said yesterday, days after several Chinese tour guides were found working illegally in the country.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting the Southeast Asian nation in recent months “soared out of the blue”, said Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Director-General Nguyen Van Tuan in its half-year review meeting on Friday.

Chinese visitor growth scored soared more than 47.5 per cent from the same period last year.

The latest VNAT report shows more than 1.2 million Chinese tourists visited Vietnam in the first six months of 2016, making up roughly a quarter of the total international tourists visiting.

“The thing is that the Vietnam tourism industry’s capabilities in terms of both personnel and services failed to adapt to such a sudden growth (of Chinese tourists),” Tuan said.

“Worse still, Chinese visitors do not spread evenly across the country but only focus on some tourism sites, particularly Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa province and Da Nang.”