In 2018 a record number of Russian tourists visited Vietnam: more than 600 thousand people. However, the dynamics of growth in tourist flow from the Russian Federation showed a clear slowdown, the last months of the year even showed a decline
According to the Vietnamese National Tourism Administration (VNAT), in 2018 606,637 tourist arrivals from the Russian Federation were recorded in the country.
Russia showed the sixth result among all foreign markets by the number of tourists, following after traditional Asian neighbors of Vietnam - China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, as well as the USA.
As VNAT materials emphasized, the Russian Federation remains the largest source market among European countries for Vietnam, ahead the UK and France.
In total, in 2018 Vietnam hosted a record 15.5 million foreign tourists (+ 19.9% by 2017).
Despite the historical result, by the end of 2018 the Russian tourist flow in Vietnam showed not high growth against the previous two years. If there was an increase by 28% in the number of tourists by the end of 2016, in 2017 there was a growth already by 32%. The increase in 2018 turned out to be not so significant: only + 5.7% compared to the 2017 figure.
One of the reasons of the decline in the dynamics of arrivals in Vietnam is the decrease of the ruble exchange rate, which has led to a decrease in the solvency of Russian tourists and a rise in prices for tours in rubles. So in April-May 2018, when the ruble exchange rate lost about 15% to dollar, the number of arrivals from Russia to Vietnam was lower than in April and May 2017 by 5.3% and 12.7%, respectively.
The Russian market also "sank" and at the end of 2018, when world currencies began to grow again: in November there were 5.8% less of the Russian tourists on the beaches of Vietnam than in November 2017 (56.5 thousand people); and in December - by 4.3% less (54.5 thousand people).
Thus, almost the entire increase in 2018 (in comparison with 2017) was achieved mainly due to the first months (January-March) of the last year.