“Vietnam’s tourism is getting much better but some issues should be quickly addressed,” says Mr Edouard George, President of Phoenix Voyages in a talk with Vietnam Business Forum.
How do you evaluate Vietnam’s tourism in recent years?
There is no doubt that Vietnam has a big potential for tourism. Vietnam has many beautiful landscapes, ancient towns, nice beaches and islands, friendly people and unique minority cultures. The Vietnamese are fast learning, hard working and intellectual, but they still have some weaknesses. There are an increasing number of foreign visitors coming to the country year after year; unfortunately, there is just a small percentage of repeat visitors (less than 20 per cent).
Could you please quote some reasons?
The first factor that I want to emphasize is the image of Vietnam overseas, I mean, there is an enormous need for marketing exposure, especially for secondary destinations.
Second, there are so many people pretending to be travel agencies without skills and experience. They are killing the market and if this continues, it will badly affect the country’s tourism industry.
Third, there is a need to educate people, for example: heavy traffic and no respect for basic international traffic rules are now big problems in Vietnam and they scare foreign visitors who are reluctant to drive long distances, hence they cannot enjoy visiting other cities.
These factors may leave a bad impression of Vietnam and discourage people from coming again.
As an expert in this business, what may be the solutions to these problems?
Frankly speaking, visitors come to Vietnam to see something, to visit sites and to enjoy their holidays, but I saw recently some strong signs of increasing destruction of the cultural and historical patrimony and rising pollution. Vietnam needs to address those issues in a firm, quick and professional manner, and set aside funds to make it happen.
The country should also invest immediately in promoting Vietnam and offer more “destinations within the destination,” more product varieties – having everything, but of course, it must be well organized.
Recently, Vietnam became a WTO member and the WTO represents the whole world, therefore, Vietnam has to adapt to universal policies.
Traffic rules should also be quickly modified and respected.
The government and relevant sectors need to tighten the issue of licenses by setting up rules and implementing them.
People should be educated on how to welcome, how to serve, how to satisfy visitors and become “Ambassadors” within the country. It can be done via dedicated programmes through the mass media (television spots, newspapers etc.) In addition, people should be aware of the negative results in the mid/long terms of their wrong actions.
Finally, we need to protect the environment and the cultural assets of the country and monitor the huge price increases which are affecting the competitiveness of the destination.
If these are soon resolved, I believe Vietnam will be a tourism developed country even earlier than planned.
Le Phuong
Vietnamese
