Vietnam travel - Nha Trang to embrace Russian tourist surge until year-end

Many major Russian tour organizers have announced plans to bring more holidaymakers to Vietnam’s coastal city of Nha Trang, a favorite destination of Russian tourists, in the last months of this year.

Russian tourists sunbathe on a Nha Trang beach in Khanh Hoa Province, located in south-central Vietnam travel .

Moscow-based Aneks Tur has said that it will bring tourists from 23 Russian cities, compared to only three last year, to Nha Trang this winter, according to tourism portal tourdom.ru.

Russian holidaymakers will fly to the Vietnamese resort city on Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft operated by Utair Aviation, which is able to accommodate up to 330 passengers per trip to Nha Trang.

Nha Trang is the capital city of the south-central province of Khanh Hoa, about 450 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

Pegas Touristik, which dominates the market of organizing Vietnam travel packages for Russian tourists, hopes to increase the number of nonstop flights between Russian cities and Nha Trang to 26, from the current 24 cities.

Another player in the market, Biblio Globus, also plans to add direct flights between Saint Petersburg and Ekaterinburg and Nha Trang every ten days.

The company currently brings its customers to Nha Trang via flights from Moscow and Novosibirsk to Ho Chi Minh City.

Nha Trang and Phan Thiet, a resort city in south-central Binh Thuan Province, are favorite destinations of Russian tourists.

Tourists from Russia are drawn to the Southeast Asian country on account of its stunning beaches, cityscapes, and reasonable prices, France’s Le Monde Diplomatique, a monthly newspaper, reported in its August issue.

Vietnam travel has thus enjoyed strong growth in Russian arrivals over the past few years, with the European country one of the ten key markets for the Vietnamese tourism sector.

In 2009 Vietnam travel - Vietnam only received nearly 50,000 tourist arrivals from Russia, but the figure rose to nearly 300,000 last year, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

Russian arrivals have posted an average rise of 57 percent per year, while the number surged by 70 percent from 2012 to 2013, the ministry said at a meeting in August.