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Vietnam’s tourism recovery has been impressive. The next challenge is turning more visitors into more value per visitor
International arrivals reached nearly 16 million in the first eight months of 2026, up more than 14% y/y, putting Vietnam on track toward its target of 25 million visitors this year.
Importantly, tourist spending has also improved from pre-Covid levels.
In 2019, an international visitor spent around VND26 million per trip in Vietnam, well below the VND36–37 million spent in Thailand.
By 2025, average spending in Vietnam had risen to around VND32 million per trip, narrowing the gap with Thailand at around VND39 million and Malaysia at VND37–40 million. According to Vietnam’s Travel Landscape 2026 published by The Outbox Company.
So Vietnam is clearly moving in the right direction, but it still captures less value from each international visitor than some of its key regional peers.
This is why the next phase of tourism growth should focus not only on attracting more tourists, but higher spending tourists.
Around 70% of arrivals still come from Asian countries, while higher spending and longer stay markets such as Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East remain relatively small.
Attracting these travelers is only part of the solution. Vietnam also needs to give visitors more reasons to stay and more opportunities to spend.
That means better destination connectivity, more distinctive cultural and local experiences, stronger shopping and entertainment offerings, a more developed nighttime economy, and further expansion into higher value segments such as MICE, wellness, golf and shopping tourism.
Vietnam already has the fundamentals: natural landscapes, culture, cuisine and hospitality. The opportunity now is to move beyond competing mainly on affordability and build a tourism ecosystem capable of capturing more value from those advantages.
For investors, the impact extends well beyond hotels and tour operators. Longer stays and higher tourist spending should benefit aviation, airports, retail, restaurants, entertainment and consumer services.
Vietnam’s next tourism milestone may therefore be less about how many visitors arrive, and more about how much value each visitor creates.
