Ninh Binh Focusing on Tourism Marketing and Promotion in Key Markets

 

In 2011, Ninh Binh welcomed 3.6 million tourists, churning out total revenue of VND 655 billion. The volume of tourists to Ninh Binh in 2007 – 2011 had an average growth of 24.58 percent/year. For first 07 months of 2012, Ninh Binh welcomed over 3.2 million visitors including over 2.6 million domestic and over 526,000 foreign tourists, with revenue of over VND 564 billion. The province also successfully called for investment from 250 organizations and individuals in the tourism sector with a total value of nearly VND 15 trillion.

 

To achieve these results, over the past years, special focus has always been laid on tourism promotion and propagation. The province has built a tourism icon entitled “Ninh Binh – natural harmony" as the basis for promoting the brand and image of Ninh Binh tourism in a consistent and professional manner. Tourism promotion is always well conducted across media outlets, including newspapers, radio, and internet. Publications and tourist information material of Ninh Binh are produced in rich and diverse forms. Besides, training courses and tourism knowledge improvement classes are regularly organized, timely meeting the actual needs.

 

Ninh Binh is striving to reach the target of welcoming 6 million visitors in 2015, including 1 million international ones and attracting 1 million visitors staying in Ninh Binh, including 350 thousand ones. From 2015 onwards, the average tourist growth rate is 10 percent/year. Tourism revenue is expected to reach VND 1, 500 billion in 2015 with average growth of 15 percent / year. Income from tourism from 2020 onwards will account for more than 10 percent of the province's GDP.

Proactively seizing opportunities and challenges from the beginning of 2012, Ninh Binh tourism sector has actively worked out tourism promotion plans for key foreign markets such as France, Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Northeast Asia. Many tourism promotion publications are expressed in different languages, namely English, French, Japanese, and Chinese, with diverse contents and images which are suitable for the characteristics of each target market. Ninh Binh has cooperated with Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) to attend TTM Plus 2012 fair in Thailand, coordinate with relevant agencies and departments to work with the International SOS Vietnam company, Rotary Business Association (Japan) to promote investment in tourism, and attend the Conference on the “Demand and growth trend of International tourists to Vietnam" organized by VNAT in Hai Phong. It is planned that Ninh Binh will participate in the JATA international tourism fair (Japan), promote culture, sports and tourism activities on electronic information outlets in three languages (English, French, Vietnamese), provide Ninh Binh tourist information on the website of VNAT and local papers in some provinces throughout the country.

 

In addition, local promotion activity places special focus in the tourism centres of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. On 1 January, 2012, Ninh Binh signed a cooperation agreement on tourism development with 10 provinces and cities including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Quang Nam, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Can Tho and Hue. The agreement emphasizes a number of issues including the exchange of information, coordination and participation of international and local promotion activities among involved provinces and cities, participation in the Survey of the East-West Economic Corridor and the International Workshop "Economic tourism development cooperation, East-West economic corridor” in Quang Tri, coordination with the delegation from Quang Nam Tourism Promotion Information Centre in the survey on tourism services and tourist attractions in Ninh Binh, cooperation in building "tourism development master plan in the Red River Delta and the East Coast as to 2020, Vision 2030", participation in many tourism in the 2012 Coastal North Central - Hue National Year and research on the establishment of a tourism promotion fund in Ninh Binh province. This activity is of great significance, contributing to creating opportunities for the tourism promotion activities of Ninh Binh to reach to key markets. In the time to come, Ninh Binh will continue to destinations in key markets in the South and Central coastal provinces, attend the ITE fair in Ho Chi Minh City, and welcome a Famtrip delegation to Ninh Binh to do research and survey tourism products.