On May 7th, in Hanoi, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Hanoi in conjunction with the Tourism Board organised the "Conference on tourism stimulation programme in 2013 and linking cooperation for tourism business in Hanoi." The event aimed to promote foreign and domestic tourists to Hanoi and to promote tourists from Hanoi travelling domestically and internationally.
Speaking at the conference, Mr Nguyen Manh Cuong, Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said that the development and implementation of tourism stimulation programme aimed to take advantage of opportunities, to cope with the difficulties and challenges, associate tourism development with the development of services, stimulate domestic consumption goods, especially manufactured goods at the localities, contribute to overcome the difficulties of the country and support other industries to develop and create sustainable growth for tourism in the coming years.
According to Mr Cuong, the impact of the global economic recession and political turmoil in the world has continued to affect tourism in Vietnam and many experts predicted that 2013 is even more difficult than the previous year. Therefore, launching stimulation policies at this time is essential, contributing to promoting tourism in Vietnam in general and Hanoi in particular to develop sustainably and promote service sectors in 2013.
According to VNAT, in April 2013, international arrivals declined compared to the same period last year. In April, nearly 614,000 international arrivals arrived Vietnam, decreased 2.4 percent compared to the same period in 2012. Generally, in the first 4 months of 2013, the total number of international arrivals reached 2.4 million, accounting for only 94.7 percent of the same period in 2012.
Deputy Director Mai Tien Dung of the Hanoi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that in the current context, domestic and international destinations increasingly compete with each other. Many foreign tourist destinations not only offered visitors with good quality services but also reasonable price. Compared to markets in Southeast Asia, tour prices in Vietnam are usually higher and non-competitive. However, economic difficulties bring not only challenges but also many opportunities for the tourism industry. In addition, 2013 is also a particularly important year to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and many other countries. In the future, definitely the need to travel is great, if Vietnam makes good use of these opportunities, its tourism industry will reap success.
About the content of the tourism stimulation program in 2013, representative of the Travel Department of the VNAT said the program will focus on a number of key content, such as programmes to attract foreign tourists, promote domestic tourism, launch campaign advertising to international tourists and raise awareness of local communities, launch sales campaign on low season, promote the construction activity, develop tourism products and improve the quality of tourism services. At the same time, the VNAT will organize introduction programs to promote Vietnam destination through the slogan "Vietnam-endless beauty" in the key and potential markets overseas such as China, India, Japan, South Korea and Russia. The VNAT has launched www.timelesscharm.org.vn website to promote free information on tourism products, services, travel destinations and incentives for Vietnam’s businesses. This site will aggregate various information about Vietnam tourism such as tour products, travel services, catering, accommodation, destination and incentives for tourists to look up. Businesses participating in the programme can be introduced for free of charge.
In the future, Hanoi will promote the campaign on the spot for international visitors to Hanoi in order to increase the attractiveness of the market in parallel with strengthen domestic demand of our customers through improving quality of tourism services and sales campaigns in low season. At the same time, Hanoi will call and encourage tour operators, hotels, restaurants, transportation companies, amusement parks and shops to discount 10-40 percent for customers in the low season. Specifically, Hanoi will launch the sales campaign in tourism supply chain to create service links and attractive package, reduce seasonality, increase visitors in low season. Community tourism activities are focused in areas such as: Ba Vi and at the same time build and introduce connection tours including Thang Long Citadel-Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam-Dong Ngac old village to attract domestic and international tourists.
Regarding cooperation between tourism businesses, some delegates said that we should strengthen business links, promote information, notices of price, service, promotion programmes and make commitment to facilitate tourists.
However, participants also noted that, in order for "smokeless industry" to become a key economic sector and develop sustainably and deeply, Vietnam needs to improve the quality of tourism products, emphasize the creation of new products, enhance professionalism, improve service attitude of staff. It also needs to avoid the sort of unmannered business.
Thu Ha
Vietnamese
