Vietnam government’s decides to extend the visa-free stays for citizens from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark and Belarus for another three years and the Vietnam’s tourism operators are welcoming the decision taken. The eight countries have already enjoyed visa exemption (for a stay up to 15 days) since 2015, but it was due to expire at the end of this year.

European countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Belarus remain emerging tourism markets for Vietnam. Finland supplied just 18,826 visits during the 11 months.

The Vietnamese travel industry is welcoming the extensions, but it says that 15 days is too short, especially for Europeans. The travel industry is calling for 30 days, or at least an easy extension to the 15 day visa without the visitor having to depart the country.

China is considered the main source of tourists to come to Vietnam, whilst South Korea is the second-largest feeder of tourists with 3.86 million visits for 2019, up to November this year. Japan is the third largest with 872,255 visits in the same period. Russian has delivered 585,647 visitors over the 11 months.

But according to the statistics, Europeans tend to spend more at around US$1,316 per trip compared to US$900 for other regions, as they stay for longer periods of time. According to VNAT’s data, The Chinese tend to spend the most per capita, per day .

Vietnam provides visa-free entry to just 24 countries and territories, and of that total, nine are ASEAN neighbours. Indonesia grants visa-free travel to 169 nationalities, while the figure for Singapore is 158, Malaysia 155 and Thailand 61.