Bui Nguyen Tam Dang, head of the Inbound Department of Vietravel, told the Daily on Tuesday, 21 June 2011, that three groups consisting of 650 guests would come to the city next month. They will be in neighboring Cambodia first before flying to HCMC for a three-day visit to the city and the neighboring Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang.

The market, Dang said, is recovering better than expected as tour bookings by Japanese guests have been on the rise since the disaster. The bookings for up to October are equivalent to 70-80% of the total number in the same period last year.

At the company, Japanese tourist numbers were down by over 40% shortly after the disaster. Then it forecast the market would need two to three years to recover. “Now we think it’ll take just one year,” he said.

Nguyen Van Tran, general director of APEX Vietnam Co., LTD said the company would receive two groups of Japanese guests to the city on chartered flights, with each having 150 to 160 people.

“The first group will arrive this month. We are in talks with partners to arrange tours for other groups, so there will be more chartered flights,” he said.

He, however, said the rise in bookings by Japanese travelers was not enough to match the figure recorded in the year-ago period. “The market is recovering but can’t reach the same level of last year,” Tran said.

According to a report of the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, despite the earthquake and tsunami disaster, Japanese visitors to HCMC in the first six months of this year would increase 19% year-on-year. Japan is still one of the top 10 source markets for the city’s tourism sector.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the ministry was taking measures to bring Japanese tourists back to Vietnam.

The ministry will organize a culture and tourism festival in Japan in September and a big concert in Vietnam in October featuring performances by famous Japanese music bands.

The ministry expects around 2,500 fans from Japan will fly here for the event.