HANOI - The Vietnamese government has decided to extend visa exemption for citizens of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain till 2020.

In the past, people from the five Western European countries were exempted from visas for only one year, and then they had to ask for another one-year extension, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism on Friday.

Vietnam's visa exemption for citizens of the five countries was first piloted from 2015 to 2016.

Vietnam received 720,000 Western European visitors in 2015, some 855,000 in 2016, and 1.5 million in 2017.

In the first four months of this year, Vietnam hosted more than 5.5 million international arrivals, up 29.5 percent year-on-year, with the highest growth of 67.3 percent in the number of visitors from South Korea, followed by Finland, up 42.2 percent, and China, up 39.7 percent.

Vietnam plans to receive 16-17 million foreign visitors and 78 million domestic ones, and gain tourism revenues of $27.5 billion in 2018, said the administration.