HANOI — Vietnam is expected to welcome 1.57 million person-times of Chinese tourists, up 55 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2017, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Tuesday.

China is the largest market for foreign visitors to Vietnam, accounting for nearly one third of all international arrivals to Vietnam in the five-month period, said GSO.

China is followed by South Korea with 889,200 person-times of visitors to Vietnam, up 40.9 percent year-on-year.

In total, in the first five months, Vietnam is forecast to receive 5.25 million person-times of international tourists, up 29.6 percent year-on-year, said GSO.

Among the figure, some 4.35 million visitors travel to Vietnam by air, around 730,000 come by road while the rest of 167,800 arrive by sea.