Published:  10:55 Tuesday - July 02, 2013

The Quang Ninh Tourism Agency has been working with its partners in Japan and the Republic of Korea to establish tourism representative offices in the two countries.

The offices will promote Vietnam’s culture, economy and tourism, especially in the province of Quang Ninh. They are scheduled to open later this year.

Recently, Quang Ninh and the International Culture Association WANOKAI (Japan) have worked together on ways to spur tourism development.

The number of Japanese visitors to Vietnam rises annually but the number of those returning to the country is still low, Hamada-Kazuki, Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Japan noted at the working session.

In another move, executives and experts from the tourism industry met in Hanoi last month to seek ways for the lucrative and fast-growing non-smoking industry to be more successful.

At the conference, Vietnam National Tourism Administration Chairman Nguyen Van Tuan called for the establishment of Vietnamese tourism representative offices in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Russia, which are among Vietnam’s key partner markets.

In the first quarter, Vietnam earned 53.5 trillion VND (about 2.5 billion USD) from tourism, about one third of the sector’s total revenue in 2012, statistics from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism show.

In the period, the sector welcomed 1.8 million foreign visitors, mostly from China, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and 12.3 million domestic tourists.-VNA

VNA