Published:  00:00 Tuesday - January 08, 2008

The tourism industry must concentrate on promoting and increasing the quality of its services. In particular, new products need to be better designed to meet international standards so that the industry can continue to attract more tourists to Vietnam in 2008.

Hoang Tuan Anh, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that for the first time in 2007 the number of visitors reached 4.2 million with the quality of tourism services increasing considerably.

Vietnam is still seen as one of the most 20 attractive destinations for tourists in the globe.

To keep the tourism industry flourishing, Vietnam must concentrate on promoting itself, further improve the quality of tourism services and new products. Besides widening the overseas tourist market it is just as important to develop human resources to meet the demands of travel agencies and hotels, while mobilizing finance to invest in different forms of tourism with the aim of eradicating hunger and reducing poverty in localities.