1. National Tourism Year in Thai Nguyen Province: This year Thai Nguyen Province welcomed 1.02 million visitors, including 25,000 foreign tourists, 120% over its year target.

2. Vietnam welcomed its 4th million foreign visitor: On December 6, the 4th million foreign tourist arrived in Vietnam on a Vietnam Airlines Bangkok-Hanoi flight. He was an American named David Magidson.

This event marked the first time over 4 million visitors have arrived in Vietnam within a year. It is estimated that around 4.2 million foreign visitors will come to Vietnam in 2007.

3. Vietnam advertised its tourism industry on CNN: On October 10, a commercial advertising Vietnamese tourism was broadcast on CNN for the first time and will be broadcast 200 times within three months.

4. “Three countries, one destination” tourism fair: The fair was organized in HCM City in November, advertising Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian tourism. At the fair, Tourism Ministers of the three countries signed a joint statement to cooperate on the “Three countries, one destination” program.

5. The campaign for the selection of Ha Long Bay as a Natural World Wonder: A campaign calling on Vietnamese people and international visitors to vote for Ha Long Bay as one of the seven Natural World Wonders was launched and received widespread support.

6. VNAT conducted surveys on potential new tour plans: This year VNAT cooperated with reputed travel companies to carry out surveys on the status and successes of the tourism industry, which will serve as the foundation for designing new tours in 2008.

7. Da Lat Flower Festival 2007: Taking place in the resort city of Da Lat, in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, from December 15-21. The festival gathered over 100 flower exporters and traders from 24 provinces and cities of Vietnam and seven other flower exporting countries, including Holland, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Belgium, Denmark and China.

8. A boom of foreign-invested projects in tourism: In the January – October period, there were 41 foreign-invested hotel projects, totaling US$1.773 billion in registered capital, up 17.2% compared to the same period 2006.

From 1998 to October 2007, Vietnam welcomed 229 foreign-invested tourism projects, with total capital of $6.084 billion.

9. The 10th birthday of VNAT’s website: By December 22, over 9.8 million readers had visited the web address www.vietnamtourism.com. With five language versions - Vietnamese, French, English, Chinese and Japanese - it is considered the most prestigious website on Vietnamese tourism.

10. Foreign tourists visiting the central region by road increases: Thanks to VNAT’s plan to lure foreign tourists to the central region by road (who travel from Thailand, through Laos to Vietnam), the number of foreign tourists, mainly visitors from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to the central region this year soared, making ASEAN the primary market of the Vietnamese tourism industry.

Today, VNAT also announced important tourism events of 2008: the National Tourism Year in the Mekong Delta; the Return to the Roots tourism program; Festival Hue 2008; the campaign for the selection of Ha Long Bay as a Natural World Wonder; the International Firework Contest in Da Nang City; Miss Tourism 2008; Miss Universe 2008; The plan to speed up tourism marketing both at home and abroad; the ASEAN Tourism Forum and the Travex 2009 tourism exhibition.