Hanoi Named World's Second-Friendliest City for Service

Photo courtesy of VietNamNet Global

Hanoi has been ranked the second-friendliest city in the world for customer service, according to a new global survey highlighted by Malaysia's The Star - putting the Vietnamese capital ahead of every other Southeast Asian destination on the list.

The ranking

The list, "World's Top Ten Cities with the Friendliest Customer Service," was compiled by price comparison website MoneySuperMarket from more than 1,000 customer reviews covering restaurants, bars, attractions and other things to do across 107 cities worldwide. Edinburgh topped the table, with 59 per cent of its reviews highlighting friendly staff and service. Hanoi came second on 58.6 per cent, narrowly ahead of Liverpool on 58.3 per cent.

The Star credited Hanoi's showing to Vietnam's deeply rooted culture of community and social harmony, and a long tradition of hospitality. The newspaper noted that Vietnam has consistently placed among the world's top 10 most hospitable countries in similar surveys over the years, and that Southeast Asia as a whole is often singled out by travellers as one of the friendliest regions on earth, alongside Thailand and Indonesia.

One image accompanying the coverage showed foreign tourists trying their hand at calligraphy at the Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam complex, Hanoi's Temple of Literature - the kind of hands-on cultural experience The Star's report suggests is part of what keeps visitors rating the city so highly.

What it means for foreigners in Vietnam

For the large community of expats, long-term residents and tourists living in or visiting Hanoi, the ranking will likely read as confirmation of something many already say about day-to-day life in the city: that dealing with shops, restaurants, cafes and tour operators tends to be a warm, low-friction experience compared with many other capitals.

It's also a reminder of how central the hospitality and tourism sector is to Hanoi's economy and international reputation - rankings like this one feed directly into how the city is marketed abroad, and can influence everything from visitor numbers to how easily foreign-run hospitality businesses are able to compete locally. For anyone weighing up where to base themselves long-term in the region, independent surveys like this one are also a useful, relatively unbiased data point alongside the usual cost-of-living and visa considerations.

20 July 2026