The National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam is an historical political event, marking significant development step of the nation. Each Congress has the duty to assess and define socio-economic development orientations for the country in general and individual sectors in particular. The role of the tourism sector is valued deeply by each congress. The followings are contents related to tourism development orientations in documents from the fourth to the tenth congresses.

At the fourth National Party Congress: “Attaching importance to tourism business, organizing supply for foreign maritime cruises and other services”.

At the fifth National Party Congress: “Expanding tourism business, making tourism gradually become an important sector matching the country’s potential”.

At the sixth National Party Congress: “Together with promoting exports of commodities, favourable conditions are needed to develop foreign currency inflow such as travel, overseas remittance, maritime cruise provision, and aviation services. Removing bureaucratic procedures obstructing these activities”.

At the seventh National Party Congress: “Tapping the charming of nature, cultural heritage, and other advantages of the country, expanding cooperation with foreign partners to further develop tourism.”

At the eighth National Party Congress: “Carrying out a general plan for tourism development to match the country’s potential in the direction of cultural travel and ecotourism. Building programs and attractive destinations in culture, historical sites and natural landscapes. Mobilising forces to take part in tourism business, prioritising construction of infrastructure in large centres. Improving education levels and service quality suitable to various types of tourism. Promoting internal capital mobilisation in investing in hotels. Equitising some hotels which could mobilise capital to upgrade. Coordinating with foreign partners to build tourist areas and big hotels with fine quality and much capital”.

At the ninth National Party Congress: “Improving the quality and effectiveness of tourism activities. Closely coordinating with relevant agencies to develop some complexes, making the tourism sector a key economic sector. Developing and diversifying ecotourism, cultural and historical sites which were attractive to domestic and foreign tourists. Building and upgrading infrastructure and intensifying coordination with other countries in tourism activities. Moreover, the ninth National Party Congress document defined specific development orientations for ecotourism, cultural, sea and island travel for each key tourism region nationwide.”

At the tenth National Party Congress: “Rapidly developing and improving the quality of tourism activities, diversifying tourism products and types”. With guidelines and efforts to overcome difficulties, Vietnam’s tourism sector posted positive results, such as: welcoming more than 5 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2010, providing services for nearly 28 million domestic tourist arrivals, earning revenue of VND 96 trillion, contributing 4.5% to national GDP and creating jobs for more than 1.4 million workers.

In short, the documents of National Party Congresses show how contents related to tourism become firm foundations and play a key role for the tourism sector in provinces and cities in defining development directions.