Foreign visitors spend more in Vietnam

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Overall the total number of Visa transactions made by overseas visitors increased by 15.5 per cent to 4.8 million in 2012.

Visitors from the US recorded the highest amount of spending at $99.9 million, a rise of 9.6 per cent from $91.2 million in 2011. This was followed by visitors from South Korea with $82.6 million and Australia with $82.1 million.

“The growing card usage among visiting travellers points to Vietnam gradually becoming a more developed electronic payments market as foreign travelers demonstrated a greater level of trust towards the payment system in the country,” Lorijon Bacchi, Visa country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, said.

The top 10 countries based on overall traveller spend in Vietnam were the US, South Korea, Australia, Japan, France, United Kingdom, Singapore, Russia, Canada and Germany. These 10 countries accounted for 73.9 percent of total Visa card spend by travellers coming to Vietnam.

The report also noted that the biggest rise in spending was recorded by visitors from Russia which has now become Vietnam’s eighth largest source market in terms of international spending.

Spending by Russian Visa cardholders increased by 67 per cent over the previous year growing from $17.7 million to $29.5 million. Visitors from Russia also recorded the highest volume of tourism receipts at 206,185, up 98.1 per cent year on year.

“The significance of the Russian market to Vietnamese tourism has caught the attention of tourism authorities here. Cities like Danang and the central resort town of Nha Trang are popular with Russian families on vacation, especially during the Russian winter, with more than 13 flights taking Russian tourists to Vietnam each week. Tourism authorities in Danang have also mentioned plans to promote the city by opening a direct route from Moscow to Danang,” said Bacchi.

Other source markets that showed significant increases included Germany, Japan and South Korea, with spending growth of 25 per cent, 19.9 per cent, and 17.1 per cent respectively.

“More consumers are now realising the benefits and convenience of payment cards when making transactions abroad. Payment cards allow consumers to conveniently access their funds from ATM machines abroad and make payments at millions of merchant locations in more than 200 countries where Visa cards are accepted,” said Bacchi.