A chartered airplane carrying 231 passengers landed at Cam Ranh International Airport close to the coastal city of Nha Trang on Monday. This marked its comeback after a three-year pause.
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, direct flights between Russia and Nha Trang ceased operations at the beginning of 2022.
The Khanh Hoa Provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, along with Anex Vietnam and various organizations, greeted the landing of Azu Air LLC’s Flight ZF2577 from Irkutsk International Airport at Cam Ranh Airport. They celebrated this event with a ceremonial water cannon salute and a traditional Vietnamese lion dance.
The passengers on the chartered flights received keepsake presents as well. This initiative comes after the province's tourism promotional activities in Russia, such as a conference held in Moscow.
As stated by the department, Russian visitors generally remain for a minimum of five nights, primarily choosing accommodations in three-to five-star hotels, often through comprehensive tour packages that cover Nha Trang’s famous sites.
Anex Vietnam, which is leading the effort to bring back Russian tourists, intends to run chartered flights originating from 11 different cities across Russia to Cam Ranh International Airport. The listed cities encompass Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk, Novokuznetsk, and Blagoveshchensk.
The firm plans to operate around 12 chartered flights in March 2025, which will increase to between 50 and 55 flights each month from April through June. The number of flights is expected to rise even more, reaching an estimated range of 90 to 100 flights monthly starting from July onward.
Prior to the onset of COVID-19, Russian tourists constituted the second largest visitor demographic for Khanh Hoa, recording approximately 460,000 visits in 2019. However, due to the pandemic and associated geopolitical challenges, these figures plummeted to around 14,000 visitors in 2022 and increased slightly to 51,200 in 2023. By 2024, however, there was a significant resurgence with 105,513 arrivals, which marks more than twice as many compared to the prior year yet remains only about 22.8% of what it was back in 2019.
In 2025, Khanh Hoa plans to welcome approximately 11.8 million travelers, with an anticipated influx of around 5.2 million international guests. The overall tourism income is projected to amount to VND60 trillion (approximately US$2.35 billion).
Global entries surpassed 1.3 million, reflecting an increase of 12.5%. Meanwhile, during the initial two months of the year, Russian entrants climbed to 24,000, indicating a substantial rise of 73.15% from what was recorded in early 2024.