The adverse impacts caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic has seen the number of foreign visitors to the nation decrease by 78.7% this year to 3.8 million in comparison to last year, according to data released by the General Statistics Office (GSO).

International tourists at Temple of Literature, Hanoi (Photo: VNA)

Since the second quarter of the year the country has not reopened to international tourists, with the majority of arrivals being foreign experts and technical larbourers working in local projects.

Due to this, the number of international visitors to the country in December witnessed a decrease of 8.1% from the previous month and a 99% drop from the same period last year.

Throughout the year the number of foreign visitors to the country by air made up 80.3% of arrivals, representing a decline of 78.6% compared to 2019, while the number of foreign arrivals by road and sea suffered falls of 81.9% and 45.2%, respectively.

This year, visitors from Asia have made up 73.3% of the total number of international visitors, representing a sharp drop of 80.4% from the previous year. Of the figure, visitors from major markets such as China, the Republic of Korea (RoK), Japan, Taiwan (China), Cambodia, and Malaysia, recorded sharp decreases of 83.5%, 80.4%, 78.4%, 78.8%, 46.6%, and 80.7%, respectively.

Visitors from Europe this year plummeted by 69%, while arrivals from the Americas decreased by 75.7% compared to 2019’s figures.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, this year has seen the country enjoy numerous successes, such as successfully containing the COVID-19 epidemic in a swift manner, coupled with the implementation of domestic tourism stimulus schemes which have received positive responses from different localities

This comes after Vietravel Airlines made its official debut on December 26, with the airline set to put airfares on sale from January 1.