The Vietnamese government on Friday said that it had decided to extend visa exemption for citizens of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain till 2020.

In the past, people from the five Western European countries were exempted from visas for only one year, and then they had to ask for another one-year extension, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism on Friday.

Vietnam’s visa exemption for citizens of the five countries was first piloted from 2015 to 2016.

Vietnam received 720,000 Western European visitors in 2015, some 855,000 in 2016 and 1.5 million in 2017.

In the first four months of this year, Vietnam hosted more than 5.5 million international arrivals, up 29.5 per cent year-on-year, with the highest growth of 67.3 per cent in the number of visitors from South Korea, followed by Finland, up 42.2 per cent, and China, up 39.7 per cent.

Vietnam plans to receive 16-17 million foreign visitors and 78 million domestic ones, and gain tourism revenues of $27.5bn in 2018, said the administration.

(Xinhua/NAN)