The number of foreign visitors to Vietnam in 2012 hit a record high of 6.84 million, an increase of 9.5 percent over last year, surpassing the yearly target of 6.5 million, according to Vietnam's General Statistics Office (GSO) on Wednesday.

The sharp increase of foreign visitors to Vietnam also brought the amount of foreign currency earnings to a new record. With average spending of 1,000 U.S. dollars per person, the country's tourism sector is expected to pocket 6.8 billion dollars in revenue this year, up from 5.62 billion dollars in 2011.

Of the total figure of foreign visitors, over 4.17 million people came to Vietnam for travel this year, an increase of 7.3 percent year-on-year, said GSO.

About 1.16 million visitors came for business purpose, up 16.2 percent, and 1.15 million people came to visit relatives, up 14.3 percent.

According to the GSO, during the period, over 5.57 million visitors arrived in Vietnam by air, an increase of 10.8 percent year-on-year, while over 285,500 visitors came via sea routes (up 0.8 percent) and some 986,200 people by land (up 5.4 percent).

China remained the top source of foreign tourists during the year with 1.42 million person-times, up 0.8 percent year-on-year, followed by South Korea with over 700,000 person-times (up 30.7 percent) and Japan with 576,400 person-times (up 19.7 percent).

The country saw a strong growth in the number of Russian tourists with a sharp increase of 71.5 percent or 174,300 person- times, said the GSO.

Vietnam has set a target to welcome some 10-10.5 million foreign tourists and 17-18 million domestic travelers by 2020 with a revenue of 18-19 billion U.S. dollars, contributing 6.5-7 percent to the country's gross domestic product, according to Vietnam's General Department of Tourism.

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