Tourist arrivals in Laos up 14 per cent in 2012

Vientiane - More than 3 million tourists visited Laos last year, up 14 per cent from the year before, media reports said Friday.

Visitors from neighbouring China led the influx with 190,000 arrivals in 2012, up 26 per cent from 2011, the Vientiane Times reported.

The number of South Korean tourists jumped 46 per cent to 50,000, the state-run daily said.

Overall, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 2.8 million of the foreign tourists last year, a jump of 17 per cent.

Laos, one of the world’s last communist countries, has focused on developing hydropower and tourism as its two main engines of economic growth.//DPA