Ha Noi has been ranked seventh on a new list of the world’s fastest-growing tourism cities, with a 16.4% average annual growth rate in the 2009 - 2016 period, according to the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index 2017.
Hoan Kiem Lake
According to the report, Ha Noi ranked after Osaka, Chengdu, Colombo, Abu Dhabi, Jakarta and Tokyo.
Jakarta and Ha Noi’s entry into the list of top 10 fastest growing cities points to Southeast Asia’s rising significance as a key travel hub. Ha Noi is placed 7th, up from 13th last year. In 2016, the Vietnamese capital welcomed 2.94 million overnight visitors whose total spending stood at US$1.1 billion. Ho Chi Minh City ranks 15th in the global list with foreign arrivals growing by 11.1% on average since 2009.
The survey, which ranks 132 cities, found that travel and tourism in the Asia Pacific region are showing no signs of slowing down, with the region dominating visitor arrivals once again.
More than half of the top destination cities reported an increase in spending, consistent with or greater than their GDP increases between 2009 and 2016, and are primed to be engines of broad economic growth for their respective countries.
Ha Noi was named as the cheapest travel destination by TripAdvisor travellers between 2014 and 2016. The travel site estimated last year that a three-night holiday for two in Ha Noi costs only $494, nearly four times less than New York, the most expensive travel destination in the ranking.
In 2015, the visual social network Pinterest ranked the Vietnamese capital as the third most-pinned location of all time, while Lonely Planet labelled the city's Old Quarter as a once in a lifetime experience.
International arrivals to Ha Noi in 2016 increased by 23%, to more than four million from the previous year, and the number reached 3.5 million in the first nine months of this year, a 24% annual increase.