Tourism: Where does Vietnam stack up?

I have seen so many articles about travel to Vietnam over the past year, including this noodle soup guide in the New York times. There are beaches, cities, sites, history, food. Really everything.

Source: Euromonitor

Well, it turns out that Vietnam is still not in the upper echelon in terms of attracting tourists, at least according to Euromonitor. Turns out that not one city in Vietnam was in the top 10. Ho Chi Minh City was the first listed at #31.

Even within Asia, no Vietnamese city was in the top 10. Surprisingly, Kuala Lumpur was #5. The other top 4 didn’t really surprise me, although Singapore punches above its weight, especially because it is tiny!

Source; Euromonitor

Delhi and Mumbai also did well, which is maybe not too weird. But I don’t think there is a groundswell of visitors there. But maybe I am thinking about Western/US visitors too much. Lots of people come from all over the world to India, and they have for centuries. Look at Alexander the Great!

Asia, overall, though is the leading region, helped, of course, by a very large population. As the crossword clue goes, it’s where most of us live. [Us = humans]

Source: Euromonitor

Vietnam is still a relatively new market, so maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised that HCMC wasn’t higher in the rankings. Euromonitor forecasts 8.2m visitors in HCMC for 2019, up 14% yoy. However, that only moved it up one rank.

Ha Long was second at 6.2m (#48), then Hanoi at 5.1m (#52) and finally Da Nang (#90). All except Hanoi with double digit growth. Hanoi was not too shabby at 9.5%.

I sometimes have doubts about Euromonitor figures, but these seem to line up with official statements. In 9M2019, HCMC said it had 6.2m visitors.

Most visitors are Asian (which we see in most Asian markets). According to the General Statistics Office:

Asian visitors accounted for 79.6 percent of the total foreign arrivals in Vietnam in 11 months, an increase of 18.2 percent year on year. Upturn was seen in the majority of tourism markets, including China (15.1 percent), the Republic of Korea (22.3 percent), Japan (15.4 percent), Taiwan (30.2 percent), Malaysia (12.9 percent), and Thailand (47.1 percent).

Anyway, some interesting stats here. My view is that we will likely see very strong growth in tourism over the next few years, and it will continue trickle into the second tier cities. This should lead to lots of investment in tourism infrastructure, from hotels to airlines and airports. From golf course to adventure tours. And a good portion will likely be foreign investment, employing locals. With a few foreigners in the mix too.

My concern is that over time, Vietnam will be overtouristed. But that hasn’t happened with Bangkok yet. So there is room to grow, if the infrastructure is there.