Vietnam followed only Malaysia and Japan in the list of Asia’s fastest growing destinations for European globetrotters based on accommodation searches on digital travel platform Agoda in April.

With a 66 percent year-on-year increase in travel searches from European tourists last month, Vietnam stood at the third position, after Malaysia and Japan with their corresponding growths of 89 and 71 percent, the Vietnam News Agency reported, citing an Agoda report issued on Thursday.  

This result indicates Vietnam’s increasing popularity as a summer holiday destination for European travelers, said Vu Ngoc Lam, Agoda’s Vietnam country director. 

“It’s great to see more and more Europeans exploring all that Vietnam has to offer during their getaway periods,” Lam said.

The European countries with the most searches for travel to Vietnam last month were France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Three Vietnamese destinations most searched by European tourists in April were Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, Hoi An City in the central Quang Nam Province, and Nha Trang City in the south-central Khanh Hoa Province.

These three attractions offer travelers a combination of leisure, adventure and cultural experiences, alluring to tourists who wish to make the most of their long-distance summer holiday, according to Agoda. 

To compile the list, Singapore-based Agoda collected and analyzed accommodation searches conducted on its website in April, and then compared with the corresponding data in the same month of last year, specifically for check-in dates between July and August.

Last month saw Vietnam welcome nearly 194,000 visitors from Europe, up over 141 percent year on year, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) reported.

Over the first four months of this year, the total number of international visitors to Vietnam reached about 6.2 million, up 68.3 percent from a year earlier.

Particularly, the volume of travelers from Europe in the period sharply surged by 63.8 percent year on year. 

Compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period, the arrivals of foreign travelers to Vietnam increased by 3.9 percent, reflecting a good rebound of the Vietnamese tourism market, VNAT commented. 

As a move to attract more international travelers, Vietnam has currently offered visa waivers for 25 countries and territories, including nine ASEAN members, Chile, Panama, Kyrgyzstan, the UK, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Belarus, and seven EU members – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.

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