Vietnam attracts Chinese and Korean tourists, leaving Thailand far behind

Although Thailand welcomes more international visitors than Vietnam, tourism in Thailand is facing many challenges as the total number of visitors decreases and competition with Vietnam in two traditional markets, China and South Korea...

According to the National Tourism Administration, in the past 8 months, Vietnam welcomed 13.9 million international visitors, an increase of 21.7% over the same period last year. Notably, with only two key markets, China and South Korea, Vietnam's tourism contributed more than 6 million visitors, nearly half.

Specifically, China continues to be Vietnam's largest tourist market with more than 3.5 million arrivals (accounting for 25.4%), an increase of 44%; South Korea ranked second with over 2.9 million arrivals (accounting for 20.9%), far surpassing Thailand.

International tourists on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City

PHOTO: ND

Vietnam's tourism growth is in the context of a decline in its regional competitor, Thailand. In the first 8 months of 2025, Thailand welcomed 21.88 million international visitors, down 7% over the same period last year; in August alone, visitors decreased by more than 12%. China leads with 3.09 million visitors, down about 30% and lower than Vietnam's 3.5 million. Not only that, the number of Korean visitors to Thailand is also lower than Vietnam's, 1 million compared to 2.9 million. These are also two traditional tourist markets of the land of the Golden Pagoda, always in the top 10 largest source visitors (respectively: China, Malaysia, India, Russia, Korea, Japan, UK, USA, Taiwan, Laos).

Meanwhile, the positions in the top 10 largest international tourist markets of Vietnam, besides China and South Korea, are Taiwan, the US, Japan, Cambodia, India, Russia, Australia and Malaysia.

All tourist markets increased compared to the same period last year, such as Russian tourists continued to grow rapidly with 164.9%, Philippines 93.4%, Cambodia 50.7%...

Vietnam tourism has recently recorded positive figures. For example, the number of visitors in August increased by 7.8% compared to the previous month. Although it is still the low season for international tourism, the positive growth results in July and August have shown positive signs for the inbound tourism market, according to the assessment of the National Tourism Administration. Recently, the Government issued a resolution to expand visa exemption for 12 more European countries, opening up good opportunities to attract visitors from this region.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/viet-nam-thu-hut-khach-trung-quoc-han-quoc-bo-xa-thai-lan-185250907200632146.htm