Vietnam and Japan share robust tourism

Japan and Vietnam are sharing healthy tourism. 85,000 Vietnamese tourists visited Japan in 2013 a clear 55 per cent more from 2012. There was a record visitation of Japanese tourists with over 600,000 to Vietnam.

The number of Vietnamese tourists to Japan is consistently increasing in the first half of this year. Around 63,000 Vietnamese have already traveled to Japan from January to June. With simplified visa procedures and attractive tour campaigns Japan is managing to attract a lot of tourism from Vietnam.

A large increase in the number of Vietnamese visiting Japan was in part due to simplified visa procedures and closer co-operation among domestic tourism companies providing tours to Japan, resulting in competitive tourism packages.

Currently, a tour to Japan cost about VND30 million (US$1,400) per tourist, much less than the earlier price of VND50-60 million ($2,340-2,810).

Japan’s proposal to waive visas for Vietnamese tourists beginning in September would attract large numbers of Vietnamese.

With such positive responses from the travel market Viet Nam Society of Travel Agents (VISTA) has formed a Japanese travel club in southern Viet Nam hoping to increase tourist traffic between the two nations starting mid-August.

There are plans of sending 200,000 Vietnamese tourists to Japan and receiving one million Japanese tourists to Vietnam in 2017.