Thailand may be fully in the spotlight where Southeast Asian tourism is concerned. Its starring role in Season 3 of the hit TV show “The White Lotus” has supercharged vacationers’ already high interest.
But there’s a neighbouring destination that is one-upping Thailand in terms of growth: Vietnam now ranks as the third-most-visited country in Southeast Asia, with 17.5 million international arrivals in 2024, edging ahead of Singapore. It follows Malaysia, which claims 25 million visitors, and Thailand, in top spot with 35.6 million last year.
Those figures make Vietnam the regional leader in terms of its tourism recovery pace, a metric that continues to track — five years after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world — how much tourism business each nation has recouped from its 2019 baseline.
Vietnam has regained 98% of that business, outpacing all of its neighbours, including Thailand (87.5%) and Singapore (86%). And by all accounts, Vietnam’s popularity is continuing to soar: Nearly 4 million international tourists visited in January and February, representing an increase of 30.2% year-on-year, according to recently published figures from the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism.
Thailand’s foreign tourist arrivals from Jan 1 to March 23 rose 2.9% from a year earlier, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports said on Tuesday.
The country welcomed 8.88 million foreign arrivals during the period, topped by China at 1.26 million, it said.
The Thai government projects at least 38 million arrivals this year, compared with a record 40 million in 2019.
In Vietnam, several factors explain the country’s growing appeal to tourists. Foremost is access: The first-ever nonstop flight between the United States and Vietnam launched on Vietnam Airlines in 2021, from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City.
As well, new electronic visas followed in 2023, easing the arrival process for tourists and allowing for stays as long as 90 days — triple the previous limit. Vietnam additionally authorised visa-free stays for more than a dozen countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Spain — and more countries are being added to that list this month.
Then there’s the influx of top-tier hospitality brands: Recent hotel openings have included the Regent Phu Quoc, Capella Hanoi and JW Marriott Hotel & Suites Saigon. Additional properties from the Luxury Collection, Ritz-Carlton Reserve and Park Hyatt are all under construction. And the expansion of the Michelin guide in 2024 gave a global platform to the country’s rising culinary scene.
All that makes Vietnam increasingly appealing to luxury travellers who have already been to Koh Samui and Phuket in Thailand, or who are looking for an uncrowded, offbeat alternative to Japan and Singapore.
Mike Nguyen, founder of the Ho Chi Minh-based luxury travel boutique company Ansova Travel says all these factors have driven a 25% year-over-year increase in international bookings for his firm in 2024, eclipsing his pre-pandemic business. In 2025 he’s projecting an additional 20% to 30% in bookings.
Nguyen caters primarily to travellers from the US. But elite Indian families have also turned to Vietnam — Phu Quoc and Ha Long, in particular — to host a growing number of lavish destination weddings in 2024. That, plus a simplified visa process and increased nonstop flights, drove more than half a million Indian tourist visits in 2024, a 297% jump from the pre-pandemic level.
High-spending Chinese travellers have been a key growth source, too, swayed to visit in part over concerns about security after the highly publicised Bangkok kidnapping of Chinese actor Wang Xing and scam centres in neighbouring Myanmar that prey mainly on Chinese people.
There’s no sign that Vietnam’s growth will taper any time soon. By the end of 2025, the country plans to shatter its visit record, with 23 million international arrivals. By March of next year, the new Long Thanh International Airport is expected to welcome its first flights to Ho Chi Minh City — raising Vietnam’s visitor capacity to 25 million.
That speaks to Vietnam’s bigger, longer-term ambitions: By the turn of the decade, it aims to edge out Malaysia on Southeast Asia’s most-visited list, with Thailand as its only remaining competitor.
