Hanoi, Nov 29 (IANS): Vietnam received some 15,000 international arrivals in November following the launch of a pilot vaccine passport programme, surging 42.4 per cent from October, the country's General Statistics Office said on Monday.

Starting from November, Vietnam has allowed visitors fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to enter the country without quarantine in five localities, namely the northern Quang Ninh province, the central Da Nang city, Quang Nam province, Khanh Hoa province, and the southern Kien Giang province.

This is part of Vietnam's efforts to revive its tourism following lengthy Covid restrictions, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the first 11 months of this year, some 140,100 visitors arrived in Vietnam from abroad, mainly from Asian countries, plunging 96.3 per cent year-on-year. Nearly 69 per cent of the visitors entered the country by air, said the office.

The Southeast Asian country hosted just more than 3.8 million international arrivals in 2020, plunging 78.7 per cent from a record number of over 18 million in 2019, the last full year before the Covid broke out, according to the office.