With more than 3,200 km coastline, Vietnam is endowed with beautiful beaches, bays and islands many of which have great potential to develop tourism. Thus, the marine tourism sector has become an important economic strategy for the Vietnam travel sector.
The 2011 National Tourism Year themed "Sea and Island Tourism" has created a good opportunity for the tourism sector to promote its image and attract domestic and foreign tourists to exploit Vietnamese pristine and mysterious sea and islands. According to the General Statistics Office, in the first seven months of this year, more than 3.42 million international travelers to Vietnam tour, marking an increase of 17.3 percent from last year. Among those, two million tourists came to Vietnam with the purpose of relaxing and discovering, an increase of 11.3 percent from last year with nearly 586,000 people coming to visit relatives, 68.7 percent more than last year. Many large vessels such as Costa Classica, Princess Daphne, Pacific Venus, Voyages of Discovery and SuperStar Virgo (a five star vessel) have transported a large number of tourists to Vietnam. In terms of the domestic tourist market, marine tourism has still been the first choice with Da Nang, Nha Trang, Phu Yen, Quang Binh, Phu Quoc, Con Dao and Phan Thiet being attractive destinations.

It is obvious that the marine tourism sector has lured the largest number of tourists and brought the highest revenue for Vietnam tourism sector. The marine tourism sector accounts for 70 percent of the tourism sectors' activities and is considered one of five important economic strategies on marine economic development.

Vietnamese marine tourism has been advertised in many countries. A large number of large events such as Vietnamese Tourism Festival in France held in April 2009 and tourism exhibitions and fairs in the UK and Germany have been organized. Particularly, in May 2011, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had an advertising program about Vietnamese marine tourism in the period of the most audiences.