Vietnam – Thailand target “1 million tourists in 2015”

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and Vietnam National Tourism Administration (VNTA) will coordinate to discuss ways to carry out the program, namely “1 million tourists in 2015”. This was said by Mr. Sansern Ngaorungsi, Deputy Governor of TAT for International Marketing (Asia and South Pacific) in a conference introducing tourism development targets in 2010 of TAT in Ho Chi Minh City. The two sides focused on plans to exchange information, invite journalists of Vietnam and Thailand to visit and report Vietnam’s tourism, and invite travel agents from the two countries to take part in exhibition fairs. Mr. Ngaorungsi said that conferences to realize these plans will be kicked off in the next week. In 2009; 370,000 Vietnamese traveled to Thailand and more than 100,000 Thailand toured Vietnam. In the first eight months of 2010, 240,000 Vietnamese tourists visited Thailand while the figure of Thailand to Vietnam was 120,000. Vietnam was ranked third among ASEAN tourists visiting Thailand. Currently, there are more than 80 flights a week from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City by Vietnam Airlines, Thai Airways, Air Asia, and Lufthansa to Bangkok. Tourists from the northeast of Thailand can travel by cars to Vietnam’s central province and vice versa.