Where Vietnamese travellers go, and why

A survey of plans for the 2025 lunar new year by The Outbox Company, a research firm, asked about destinations rather than counting arrivals. The five most popular international destinations for the holiday were China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Thailand. Survey and counts agree on the shape: short-haul Asia first, with North-East Asia strongly represented.

Korea requires Vietnamese travellers to hold a visa, as VOV noted, and Japan is not named in Tuoi Tre's summary of the Henley lists (the e-visa group there is only a selection; check with Japan's consular authority). Both still grew Vietnamese arrivals by about a tenth in the periods reported. For Korea, VOV listed frequent direct flights, food, K-pop and Korean drama as the reasons, despite higher costs. For Japan, it noted a move from package tours towards customised and self-guided trips and interest in places beyond Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.

Two things stand out. Cultural familiarity, built over years through music, film and food, can outweigh a visa requirement. And once a destination is familiar, the next growth comes from second and third visits to less known regions, which is where regional tourism boards and individual attractions can compete for attention.

There is little published data on Vietnamese arrivals in Europe, North America or Oceania in the sources we checked, and VOV noted the absence of official 2025 data for parts of Europe.

For a long-haul destination, this has two consequences. Your own arrival statistics are likely to be the best evidence of the Vietnamese market, so publish them by month. And the trade route matters more: long trips with a visa and a long flight are where a tour operator's help is most useful; the Tet survey found 44% of outbound travellers preferring all-inclusive tours.

The gap in the data is also an opportunity. A tourism board that publishes Vietnamese arrivals by month, with a clear definition and a release date, becomes the source that Vietnamese journalists, tour operators and researchers quote. JNTO's figures reached the Vietnamese public through VOV's reporting in exactly this way. Publish the series in English and Vietnamese, keep earlier months available, and say whether you count by nationality or residence. When your numbers rise, the release itself is a story for Vietnamese travel desks; when they fall, explaining why is better than silence.