Vietnam Tourism 2011: Hard to Maintain High Growth

It is impossible to maintain a high growth of over 30 percent for a long time because the tourist attraction depends on the ability to provide services, human resources and destinations. Therefore, we need to know the fact that the growth rate will slow down at some point of time. When Vietnam enjoys a good outcome, it should also anticipate and prepare for unfavourable conditions that may happen.

 

Besides, we need to draw experience from good and bad lessons in recent years to boost promotion activities to keep the growth momentum. In addition to that, we need to focus on maintaining and improving the quality of services, and continue investing in new high-quality products to attract more visitors. We should catch the fancy of holidaymakers in near markets like Northeast Asia and ASEAN, and continue expanding far high-spending markets like in Western Europe, North America, Russia, and Australia.

 

In 2009, the global economic crisis caused a 10-11 percent drop in international visitor arrivals; thus, the rebound in 2010 actually filled up the decline in 2009 compared with 2008 and previous years. Compared with 2008, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in 2010 increased just 800,000. As a result, the growth in 2011 is unlikely as high as that in 2010. In fact, some places in the region are showing signs of instability while tourism is vulnerable to any sensitive factors. In 2011, the Vietnamese tourism industry expects international visitor arrivals to grow 6 percent to 5.3 million and domestic holidaymakers to increase 8 percent to 30 million. The sector will take up every opportunity and promote all internal resources, basing on successful and unsuccessful experiences in 2010 and previous years, to beat the growth target as far as possible.

 

In coming years, the Vietnamese tourism industry will be developed on three main aspects. One, Vietnam continues and perseveres at the standpoint that tourism will be developed into a spearhead economic sector of the country, casting a positive impacts on the development of other economic sectors and increasing the proportion of services in the country’s economy. Two, the country will develop the tourism industry but focus on modernity, quality, efficiency and branding aspects. This is a new perspective; thus, we need to appreciate these factors. Three, the tourism development must be associated with social order and security as well as sustainable development, basing on rational and optimal exploitation of national resources.

 

From these three standpoints, we focus on six main matters: (1) mobilising capital and exploit resources for tourism development, (2) building market-based products, (3) building and developing Vietnamese tourism brand, (4) organising promotion activities in the country and in the world, (5) accelerating human resource training and development, and (6) forming and developing key tourist areas in the country.

 

With such priorities, we will focus on promoting traditional markets while expanding new potential markets in Western Europe, North America, Russia and some other future markets like India and Indonesia. At the same time, the tourism industry must continue to reform, invest for development, build up brands, and advertise at home and overseas to attract more tourists into Vietnam.