Vietnam tourism 2023 – A year in review

• The conference discussed solutions to attract Chinese tourists to Vietnam in Quang Ninh, and discussed solutions to enhance quality assurance of services to serve Chinese tourists.
• During the Tet holiday, domestic tourism exploded with 13 million visitor trips, the highest ever.

February, 2023:

• Vietnam tourism participates in the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2023 and the TRAVEX 2023 in Indonesia to strengthen tourism cooperation among ASEAN member countries.
• Tourism Information Technology Center (Vietnam National Administration of Tourism) launches a new version of the Digital Transformation Guide in the tourism industry “Construction of awareness and unification of action”.

March, 2023:

• The Prime Minister chairs the 2023 National Conference on Tourism with the theme “Accelerating recovery – Speeding up development” evaluating results after a year of Vietnam fully reopening tourism, proposing breakthrough solutions, promoting strong tourism development.
• ​Vietnamese tourism attends the International Tourism Exchange ITB Berlin 2023 with the largest scale ever, affirming its determination to integrate into the recovery of global tourism.
• ​The opening ceremony of the Visit Vietnam Year 2023 “Binh Thuan – Green tourism comes together”, an important event that creates motivation to promote the recovery of Vietnamese tourism activities nationwide.
• According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, in the first quarter of 2023, the service and tourism sectors are bright spots, achieving growth of 6.79%; Double the GDP growth of the economy, contributing 95.91% to overall growth.
• China restores group tours to Vietnam, opening up opportunities to restore travel activities between the two countries.

April, 2023:

• The Vietnam Culture – Culinary Festival 2023 in Quang Tri themed “The soul of the nation – The taste of the homeland” at a national level, promoting the cultural values, potential and strengths of Quang Tri and localities.
• VITM Ha Noi 2023 marks a milestone of 10 years of formation and development. This year’s theme is “Cultural Tourism” to exploit the values of Vietnam’s cultural heritage.
• Netflix’s premiere with A Tourist’s Guide to Love indicating the beauty of Vietnam to the whole world, was positively received by the audience and entered the world’s most popular movie rankings after 10 days of release.

May, 2023:

• The Government issued Resolution No. 82/NQ-CP on main tasks and solutions to accelerate recovery and develop effective, sustainable tourism.
• ​During the Hung King Festival (10^th day of 3^rd lunar month coinciding with 29^th April) and Reunification Day (30th April) and International Labour Day (1st May), from 29th April to 3rd May 2023, Vietnam served 7.3 million visitor arrivals, including 300,000 international arrivals, up 40% over the same period in 2022.

June, 2023:

• Business delegation of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism attends the 35th Joint Meeting of the UNWTO Commission for East Asia and the Pacific and the UNWTO Commission for South Asia, seizing opportunities to cooperate and share solutions for tourism development and recovery.
• 103 restaurants in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City received the MICHELIN.

July, 2023:

• Celebrating the 63rd anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam Tourism Industry (9 July 1960 – 9 July 2023).
• Vietnam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) officially put into operation from 1 July 2023.
• Vietnam attends the 58th Meeting of ASEAN NTOs in Malaysia, the 43rd Meeting of ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and ROK) NTOs, seeking solutions to promote tourism within ASEAN and the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean markets.

August, 2023:

• From 15th August 2023, Vietnam issues e-visas to citizens of countries and territories, the temporary stay duration in Vietnam increases from 15 days to 45 days for citizens of 13 countries.
• The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism organised Conference on disseminating new documents on tourism development.
• ​Vietnam and Kazakhstan signed a bilateral visa exemption agreement and a tourism cooperation memorandum, contributing to strengthening tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

September, 2023:

• Vietnam Tourism is honoured to win 54 titles of Asia’s Leading awards in World Travel Awards Asia & Oceania Gala Ceremony 2023 organised in Ho Chi Minh City.
• Vietnam participates in World Tourism Day 2023 with the theme “Tourism and Green Investments” in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• The 17th International Travel Expo Ho Chi Minh City (ITE HCMC 2023) takes place under the theme “Connectivity, Growth, Sustainability”. The highlight of the ITE HCMC 2023 is the high-level tourism forum on “Digital transformation to promote tourism development”.
• Launching the Vietnamese Culinary Map “Variety of raw materials, cooking million Vietnamese dishes” with the expectation to develop the biggest online culinary map of Vietnam.

October, 2023:

• MOCST and Ministry of Tourism of Saudi Arabia sign the “Action programme in the field of tourism”
• VNAT attending the 25th session of UNWTO General Assembly in Uzbekistan
• The online Vietnamese Culinary Map “Variety of raw materials, cooking million Vietnamese dishes” received a Vietnam Record and was awarded the Book of Records from the Vietnam Record Association for “The online map with the largest number of Vietnamese dishes contributed by the community”.
• For the first time, the tourism industry has a website dedicated to promoting rural tourism, a product developed by the Tourism Information Technology Center in the “Rural tourism development program in new rural construction”.
• Tan Hoa Village (Quang Binh Province) named in the list of UNWTO Best Tourism Villages 2023

November, 2023:

• The Prime Minister chaired the Conference to develop Vietnam’s tourism quickly and sustainably, affirming that tourism development needs to be placed in the overall socio-economic development as a key economic sector.
• Vietnam promotes tourism in France and Europe markets
• UNWTO and Vietnam organise 17th UNWTO Asia/Pacific Executive Training Programme on Tourism Policy and Strategy Under the title “Human resource development in tourism – Navigating Post-Covid Challenges”.

December, 2023:

• Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha chaired the meeting of the Council for Appraising the Tourism System Planning for the period 2021 – 2030, with a vision to 2045.
• The forum promotes border tourism activities through the Mong Cai (Vietnam) – Dongxing (China) international border gate pair within the framework of the 15th Vietnam – China International Trade and Tourism Fair 2023.
• Vietnam was crowned “World’s Leading Heritage Destination 2023” and many prestigious titles at World Travel Awards Grand Final Gala Ceremony 2023.
• The closing ceremony of Visit Vietnam Year – Binh Thuan 2023, transfers the flag of hosting the Visit Vietnam Year 2024 to Dien Bien Province.
• Vietnam tourism ended 2023 with the number of 12.6 million international visitor arrivals, nearly 3.5 times more than in 2022, exceeded 57% of the original target (8 million arrivals) and reached the adjusted target (12 – 13 million arrivals). Domestic visitors reached 108 million trips, exceeding 6% of the plan. Total tourist receipts reached VND 678 trillion, exceeding the plan by 4.3%.