An Indian pharmaceutical billionaire will take about 4,500 employees to Vietnam later this month to tour through three northern Vietnamese locales, including Hanoi, Ninh Binh Province, and Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh Province.

The trip will be sponsored by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a multinational pharmaceutical company based in India and founded by Dilip Shangvi, one of India’s wealthiest billionaires.

Sun Pharmaceutical’s employees will arrive in Vietnam in a series of small groups between August 27 and September 7 and follow a pre-planned itinerary put together by Vietravel – a Ho Chi Minh City-based travel agency which will serve as the lead operator for the trip.

Each group will visit Hanoi first, followed by Ninh Binh and Ha Long Bay, said Nguyen Nguyet Van Khanh, marketing director of Vietravel, adding that guests on the trip will enjoy stays at four- and five-star hotels in each destination and have access to meals which are suitable to their specific dietary or religious needs.

Three tour guides, each of whom is fluent in Hindi, will accompany each group of 30-35 guests on the trip, Khanh told VnExpress. 

Tourism materials at each stop will also be translated into Hindi.

The Sun Pharmaceutical trip marks the first time Vietravel has hosted such a large group of international visitors, Khanh said, adding that the travel agency began making bookings for the trip about three months ago, and service providers selected for the group are already preparing to accommodate the Indian guests.

Shanghvi, the founder, chairman, and managing director of Sun Pharmaceuticals, was the fifth-richest person in India as of August 13.

His current net worth is approximately US$28.7 billion, according to Forbes.

According to the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, Vietnam welcomed more than 392,000 Indian visitors last year, a 231-percent increase compared to 2019, the year the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country.

Vietnam welcomed 231,000 Indian visitors in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year surge of 164 percent.

Thanks to the growing wave of Indian visitors to Vietnam, India has recently become one of the 10 largest tourism source markets for the Southeast Asian country, according to Vietravel. 

Direct flights recently launched between the two countries have made it more convenient for Indian travelers to Vietnam.

These routes only take about five hours.

Vietnam has also become a popular wedding destination for wealthy Indian couples, with the most recent large Indian wedding in Vietnam taking place from March 2 to 4 in Da Nang, a famous tourist city on the central coast.

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