Austrians take a liking to Vietnam

      A delegation from seven Austrians tourism companies and Thai Airways visited Hanoi on May 12 to study the country’s tourism market.
The visit was discribered as timely for Vietnam, since the number of Austrian visitors was small and had decreased.
“I hope that after the visit Austrian tourism companies will open more tours to Vietnam,” said Dao Ngoc Anh, a representative of the Marketing Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
The visit proved to be an eye-opener to at least one of the Austrians.
“We have been so impressed since arriving in Hanoi,” said Uwe Fanta, marketing director of FTI Touristik. “We love your beautiful country.”
“Up to now, information about the Vietnam tourism market has been very limited in our country. After visiting Vietnam, we will share our experiences with our customers.”
The delegation will also visit other cities such as Ha Long, Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An, HCM City and My Tho.
The Austrian’ visit will be followed by a German delegation in June and other delegations in the third quarter.
In the first four months of this year, about 1.29 million international visitors came to Vietnam, down about 18 percent over the same period of last year.
Foreign arrivals during the four months included 790,000 tourists, 210,000 on business trips and 79,000 for family reunions.
Foreign visitor numbers from key markets, such as mainland China , Japan , the Republic of Korea and Taiwan , continued to fall sharply by about 10-30 percent.
Meanwhile, arrivals from US Australia and Canada saw modest increases, from 1.5-8 percent.