Thailand may be fully in the spotlight, where Southeast Asian tourism is concerned. Its starring role in Season 3 of The White Lotus has supercharged holidaymakers’ already high interest.
But there is a neighbouring destination that is one-upping it in terms of growth: Vietnam now ranks as the third-most-visited country in Southeast Asia, with 17.5 million international arrivals in 2024, edging ahead of Singapore. It follows Malaysia, which claims 25 million visitors, and Thailand, at the top spot with 35 million.
Those figures make Vietnam the regional leader in terms of its tourism recovery pace, a metric that continues to track – five years after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world – how much tourism business each nation…
