Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam was recently listed among the world’s 20 fastestgrowing travel destinations by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.
The Southeast Asian country ranked seventh with a growth rate of 24.6 percentbased on the number of foreign tourist arrivals in 2016.
West African nation Sierra Leone topped the list, seeing a steep rise of 310percent in 2016 over the previous year.
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According to the Vietnamese General Statistics Office, international arrivalsto Vietnam in the first half of this year reached more than 6.2 million,representing a rise of 30.2 percent over the same period last year.
They mainly came from Asia, which accounted for 72.7 percent, followed byEurope (15.8 percent).
Vietnam has set target of developing tourism into a spearhead industry,targeting 17-20 million international tourist arrivals by 2020, earning 35billion USD and contributing more than 10 percent to the gross domesticproduct.-VNA