Vietnam’s tourism industry: a successful year past

Published: 06:20 Friday - January 07, 2011

Vietnam received a record high of 5 million foreign visitors in 2010, far exceeding the set target of 4.2 million, and about 28 million domestic visitors.

The tourism industry earned as much as VND96,000 billion, accounting for 5 percent of the country’s GDP, and provided employment for 1.4 million people.

According to the World Tourism Organisation, Vietnam ranks fourth in terms of tourism growth in the world, with its tourist arrivals increasing by 20 percent year by year. This means that Vietnam is sparing no effort to become a safe, friendly, and hospitable destination for tourists coming from all parts of the world.

Tourism in full swing

2010 was considered a golden year full of cultural and tourism events, the biggest of which was the Thang Long – Hanoi millennial anniversary. In response to the National Tourism Year 2010, all provinces and cities in the country actively carried out different programmes to arrange for tourists to join in planting the flag of Thang Long Hanoi on top of Fansipan, the nation's highest mountain, and attend the incense ceremony to honour Hung Kings, the Lam Kinh Festival, the Hue Festival, the Da Lat Flower Festival, and many other activities.

Hoang Thi Diep, Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), attributed the success of the tourism industry to its effective promotion campaigns carried out throughout the year.

Following its impressive performances in 2009, the VNAT launched a special tourism stimulus programme called “Vietnam – Your destination” including discounts in August and September and local promotions under the slogan “Friendly Vietnam welcomes you”

In addition, many other promotions took place in key markets such as China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Western Europe, and other ASEAN countries. As a result, in 2010, Vietnam welcomed the highest number of foreign tourist, including 900,000 from China and 400,000 from Japan, up 20 percent against 2009.

According to Vu The Binh, Director General of the Travel Department, the discount campaign offered a good opportunity for the hotel sector to strengthen cooperation with the travel sector.

Strategy to develop tourism in Vietnam

In 2010, the VNAT drafted a development strategy for the 2011-2020 period, under which the tourism industry will strive to increase the number of foreign visitors to 8 million and its earnings to US$8.9 billion in 2015 then to 12 million and US$15.9 billion in 2020.

However, there are still shortcomings in the tourism industry that need to be overcome to improve professional skills and quality of tourism products.

VNAT Vice Chairman Nguyen Manh Cuong said it is necessary to make tourism managers fully aware of the need to train human resources for the sake of sustainable development.

Vietnam’s tourism industry needs a reform

Dr. Ha Van Sieu, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, suggested Vietnam change the ways of advertising tourism products, offer more services, and regularly update information about Vietnam’s land and people, and its strong tourism brand names.

Marketing and advertising should be carefully designed to sharpen the competitive edge of the tourism industry, first and foremost, to improve the quality of tourism products.

The success of the tourism industry in 2010 will give fresh impetus for stronger growth in the near future.