How much do tourists really spend in Hanoi?

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Are you wondering how much you may need for a day in Vietnam's capital city?

Statistics show each international tourist in Hanoi spends on average $110 per day meanwhile daily travel expenses by a local tourist is estimated at $55.

The numbers are much lower than those of leading tourist cities in the region, which is probably the appeal of the Vietnamese city.

Data may vary from various sources, but according to a MasterCard survey last year, tourists to Seoul spent $258 per day, compared to $255 in Singapore and $262 in Beijing.

Meanwhile, a tourist to Bali often spends around $125 per day, according to the Indonesian central bank.

In July the TripIndex 2016 report by the travel guide site TripAdvisor named Hanoi as the least expensive among 20 favorite cities surveyed, for the third year in a row. It beat Bangkok and Mumbai.

The capital city is expecting 4 million foreign arrivals this year and 21.8 million visitors, including locals, in total. Its tourism revenue is set to reach more than VND62 trillion ($2.7 billion), up 13 percent from 2015, tourism authorities said.

Although Hanoi has gained considerable success in turning tourism into a main driving force for the economy, there remains room for growth in the industry, according to the city’s top leaders.

The goal is to encourage tourists to spend more, which requires new services and products, they said.

The pedestrian zone in the heart of the city, which has been up and running since September, appears to be a hit. The city’s government has decided to extend the vehicle-free zone trial phase through the first half of next year.

Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung believed that the idea of closing off the main streets around the Hoan Kiem Lake in the city downtown to vehicles would help attract more tourists to Hanoi.

The city has also planned to introduce double-decker tour buses early next year and has rolled out a $2 million global ad campaign on the international news network CNN.

It hopes that all these efforts will soon pay off and bring the total tourism revenue number to VND120 trillion ($5.3 billion) by 2020.

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