Vietnam’s Tourism 2011 with Sustainable Development Focus

According to Mr Nguyen Manh Cuong, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the most important success of the Vietnamese tourism industry last year is its systematic focus on promoting the popularity of Vietnam. Unlike in previous years, the tourism industry carried out this program on a larger scale, over a longer time, with a larger force, and with better products in 2010. In addition to traditional markets like Northeast Asia, ASEAN and China, the Vietnamese tourism industry focused on Western Europe. Especially, Vietnam carried out 4 - 5 promotion programmes last year in the Chinese market. The number of tourists from the US, Japan, South Korea and some Western European countries like France and Germany increased strongly.

 

Besides, the industry created more targets to reach in 2010. For the first time, we rallied the help of overseas Vietnamese to send the image of our land, people and tourism to international friends. At present, millions of Vietnamese-originated people living around the world have proven very effective at spreading the message because they know what native people want.

 

Also, for the first time in 2010, Vietnam launched sale campaigns during off-peak seasons. Although campaigns were centrally organised in three major cities, namely Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, most provinces and cities responded. This initiative, joined by industry and trade authorities and localities, was very attractive to tourists.

 

Reaching five million international visitor arrivals was the result of many activities launched in 2009. The Vietnam - ASEAN Tourism Forum 2009 hosted by Vietnam for the first time helped boost the professionalism of tourism activities, the careful building of new products, and results-focused popularity campaigns. Foreign visitors were also attracted by the cooperation among localities and business communities during key national tourism events like the 1,000-year anniversary of Thang Long - Ha Noi, and other major cultural events.

 

In 2010, the number of international visitor arrivals to Vietnam exceeded the yearly target of 4.2 million by 30 %. This was a record annual growth, as the economic crisis reduced international arrivals to just 3.8 million in 2009. Vietnam had the highest recovery rate of tourism in the world. However, the growth of tourist arrivals is not a regular upward pattern, but rather upward in some years and downward in others. In 2011, the Vietnamese tourism industry is forecast to face many challenges in attracting more foreign visitors because it does not have as many large events as in 2010. In addition, visitor numbers are also affected by natural disasters. Natural disasters repeatedly hit Central Vietnam in the past years and caused a huge impact on tourism.

 

Mr Nguyen Manh Cuong noted that tourism is a business, and a hotel owner will care more about profit than the number of customers served. Thus, he would rather serve 100 high-paying travellers than 1,000 tight-fisted customers. The important issue for tourism is how much it contributes to the country, how many jobs it creates and how much it affects economic and social development.

 

However, perception and thinking of concerned entities play a decisive role in pursuing sustained tourism development. Mr Nguyen Van Tuan, General Director of VNAT, talked about tourism as a subsidised social activity, not a business. Vietnam is endowed with natural resources but it does not know how to bring them into full play and in many places is destroying them. Weak management leaves openings for exploitation which is wasting and damaging these resources.

 

This is the reason why the tourism sector will focus on in-depth quality-centred development to increase revenues in 2011 - 2020. To do this, the tourism industry will provide value-added services and products to encourage visitors to spend more and stay longer in Vietnam.