Vietnam plans to have a highly developed tourism industry over the next five years.

To this end, the Vietnamese government will no longer require tourist entry visas for visitors from key tourism
markets, with open new direct flights to and from other countries, and will seek to attract more tourists from Eastern Europe, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, ASEAN and Australia.

The tourism sector will focus on investing in infrastructure in popular tourist regions, and will work with other sectors to improve the quality of tourism, developing eco-tourism and creating high-quality tourism service at competitive prices.

The sector will also boost tourism promotion programmes at home and abroad.

The country's tourism sector has so far signed 29 bilateral cooperation agreements with other countries, and set up relations with over 1,000 travel agencies in 50 different countries and territories. It has also joined international and regional forums like the World Tourism Organisation, ASEAN tourism cooperation and the open Mekong sub-regional tourism development programmes.

The National Administration of Tourism predict that Vietnam will welcome 3.8 million foreign and 16 million domestic tourists during 2006