Foreign tourist arrivals on the rise

Visitors to Viet Nam in August increased by 4.4 per cent over July, to a total of 427,900 for the month, the General Statistics Office said.
Of those, 80,500 visitors arrived by road; 343,000 by plane and 4,500 by sea, the office said.
The number was up 37.7 per cent against August last year, bringing the total for the first eight months of this year to 3.35 million visitors.
The highest increase was from Cambodia, up 104.4 per cent, followed by mainland China (98.5 per cent), Thailand (36.1 per cent), South Korea (29 per cent,) Australia (28.3 per cent), Malaysia (21.6 per cent), Japan (21.3 per cent), Taiwan (21 per cent), France (13 per cent) and the US (0.7 per cent).
The industry expects to be busy with its "Impressive Viet Nam" sale this month and next.
Meanwhile, people have been frantically searching for outbound tours since Friday was declared a holiday for State employees, bridging the gap between Independence Day, on Thursday, and the weekend.
Hong Mai of Ha Noi said she had made plans to take her family to the countryside until the extra day off was announced, making a trip out of the country a viable option.
However, the decision came to late, she said. Mai could not find a suitable tour because most were full.
Tour companies said they had either closed off many tours or there were only a few isolated seats left.
Ha Noi Redtour deputy director Nguyen Cong Hoan said he had been swamped with customers the day after the announcement was made last week.
On the first morning, 15 people booked Singapore tours, 10 chose Hong Kong tours and 17 selected Malaysia, he said.
Vietsky Travel spokeswoman Thu Hien said all outbound tours were full and they had turned away many disappointed customers.