A chartered airplane carrying 231 passengers from Russia landed at Cam Ranh International Airport close to Nha Trang seaside resort town on Monday, signaling its comeback after a three-year pause.
Owing to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, direct air routes from Russia to 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 board 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 usually remain for a minimum of five nights, primarily lodging in three-to five-star accommodations, as part of comprehensive tour packages that take them through Nha Trang’s famous sites.
Anex Vietnam, which is leading the initiative for welcoming 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, then ramping up to between 50 and 55 flights each month from April through June, before escalating to 90 to 100 flights monthly starting in July.
Prior to the onset of COVID-19, Russian tourists constituted the second-highest visitor demographic for Khanh Hoa, recording approximately 460,000 visits in 2019. However, due to the pandemic and related geopolitical challenges, these figures plummeted to around 14,000 visitors in 2022 and increased slightly to 51,200 in 2023. By 2024, the number surged back up to 105,513, marking more than twice as many travelers compared to the prior year yet still only reaching about 22.8% of the peak seen in 2019.
In 2025, Khanh Hoa plans to welcome approximately 11.8 million travelers, with an anticipated 5.2 million coming from abroad. The overall tourism income is projected to amount to VND60 trillion (approximately US$2.35 billion).
Global entries surpassed 1.3 million, showing an increase of 12.5%. Meanwhile, during the initial two months of the year, Russians arriving totaled 24,000, indicating a significant rise of 73.15% from what was recorded in early 2024.
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