The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and travel firms have organised a number of tourism promotion programmes and road shows in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, hoping to attracting one million Japanese tourists in 2015, double last year's number.

Besides, the Viet Nam Festival 2012 in Japan was held last week in Tokyo.

Japan is the third largest tourism market for Viet Nam, behind China and South Korea, and the country is offering visa-free entry for Japanese nationals for stays of less than 15 days.

Viet Nam welcomed nearly 482,000 Japanese tourists last year, a 8.9 per cent rise from 2010. In the first eight months this year 376,000 Japanese visitors came to the country, a year-on-year increase of 18.9 per cent.-VNS