Agricultural journalists admire Vietnam's tourism boom" is the title of an article by author Alfred A. Yuson written in the Philippine Star.
Alfred said that besides the trend of spending on long-day trips to Europe or "dream" destinations, Filipino tourists are increasingly favoring short-day trips to neighboring countries in China, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia or Cambodia.
In which, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are also gradually becoming popular. Recently, Da Nang City has emerged as a destination attracting Filipino tourists through word of mouth. Among them, Hoi An is considered particularly attractive, while Hue City and Sa Pa (Lao Cai) are also increasingly being noticed.
According to records from a delegation of award-winning journalists and judges of the BrightLeaf Agri Journ Awards during a field survey a few weeks ago, Vietnam's tourism is showing impressive growth.
This group believes that the growth rate is admirable, as Vietnam welcomed 21 million international visitors, while the Philippines only reached about 6.4 million, down from the previous 8 million.
From the survey in Da Nang, the delegation found that this coastal city has formed synchronous, clean and beautiful coastal roads, with large beaches, a system of hotels, apartments, restaurants and services developing along the spatial axis.
This landscape evokes miniature versions of Rio de Janeiro or South Beach (Miami), with a chain of amenities stretching for kilometers, including 5-star beachfront resorts. This is not seen in many localities of the Philippines, author Alfred expressed.
Journalists also believe that Vietnam's market economy orientation combined with the centralized leadership of the government has created continuity in management, helping development projects to be implemented stably and without interruption.
Previously, Joe Zaldarriaga, Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications of Meralco - the largest electricity corporation in the Philippines, had made a similar assessment of Vietnam's tourism growth.
There are no signs of stagnation in Vietnam's tourism industry. I realized this after a week in Hanoi, when fully experiencing the culture, landscape and pace of life in this Southeast Asian country," Mr. Zaldarriaga wrote.
According to him, despite many challenges such as language barriers or infrastructure limitations, Vietnam still overcomes them and attracts global tourists, reflected in the steady increase in the number of visitors.
Meanwhile, despite possessing many high-quality tourism resources such as Palawan, Siargao, Boracay or cultural heritages such as Vigan, Intramuros, the Philippines is still lagging behind in terms of visitor volume and revenue.
He believes that the Philippine tourism industry can refer to the lesson from Vietnam: Just ensuring order, safety and accessibility, even with imperfect facilities, can still attract millions of tourists.
In fact, Vietnamese tourism is not only recovering but also entering a period of strong growth after the pandemic.
If in 2019 - the time before Covid-19 - Vietnam welcomed about 18 million international visitors, then by 2024 this number has recovered almost equivalently, reaching 17.6 million visitors.
2025 marks a breakthrough when the number of international visitors exceeded the 21.2 million, for the first time surpassing the pre-COVID-19 peak, an increase of 20.4% compared to 2024 and exceeding 17.8% compared to 2019. Tourism revenue in 2025 also grew impressively, estimated at over 1 million billion VND.
The upward momentum continues to be maintained in 2026, when January alone recorded about 2.5 million international visitors.
The number of international visitors to Vietnam in February 2026 reached over 2.2 million, marking the 3rd consecutive month Vietnam welcomed over 2 million international visitors after reaching 2.45 million in January 2026 and 2.02 million in December 2025.
In general, in the first two months of 2026, Vietnam welcomed nearly 4.7 million international visitors, an increase of 18.1% compared to the same period last year.
According to the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, the growth momentum of Vietnamese tourism comes from advantages in a stable and safe socio-political environment; increasingly open visa policy.
In addition, tourism promotion and advertising is strongly shifting towards professionalism, strengthening public-private partnerships and digitization; the attractiveness of Vietnamese tourism continues to be strengthened; service quality has also recorded many positive changes as well as the transportation connection network is increasingly expanded. All create a driving force combination contributing to improving competitiveness and the ability to attract international visitors.
