Over the past nine months, Vietnam has welcomed more than 4.3 million foreign tourist arrivals, a year-on-year increase of 15.5 percent, reported the Vietnam General Statistics Office.

Of the total, the number of foreign tourists travel to Vietnam by plane was nearly 3.6 million, a year-on-year rise of 20.4 percent. In the first nine months this year, nearly 2.6 million arrivals visited the country for recreation purposes, up 10.9 percent.

Compared to the same period last year, Vietnam saw surges in the number of tourists from many different foreign markets. Specifically, China took the lead with 980,000 arrivals (up 44.9 percent) and was followed by the Republic of Korea with 380,000 arrivals (up 4.2 percent). Japan was next with 344,000 arrivals (up 8.2 percent), next was the US with nearly 329,000 arrivals (up 1.2 percent), Australia with more than 210,000 arrivals (up 2.5 percent) and France with 156,000 arrivals (up 6 percent).

Southeast Asia, which is considered as a potential market for Vietnam tourism, also witnessed significant growth. Cambodia posted more than 302,000 arrivals (up 59.2 percent) and Malaysia had more than 168,000 arrivals (up 12.2 percent) to Vietnam.