Vietnam: Vietnam Tourism Profile

2004 was a successful year for Vietnam Tourism. The number of International tourists increased 20.5% against 2003. Other indicators, such as national gain from tourism, spending by tourists, the duration of remain of tourists were higher than completed years. Although tourism was hit hard by the bird flu in the initial months of the year, in the later months, the number of tourists made a quick comeback, thus creating a fairly stable increase of tourism for Vietnam.

In the initial Quarter of 2005, Vietnam saw a high increase rate in tourism, with international tourists increased by 22 % against the same period in 2004, with a total of additional than 870,000. I am confident that 2005 will witness a good success for Vietnam tourism, providing a good impetus for Vietnam tourism in the 2006-2010 period.

The total figure of international tourists to Vietnam in 2004 was 2,930,000. Breakdown of this was as follows:

27% from China
26% from North Asian countries
11% from ASEAN countries
12% from Europe, and
11% from North America

China accounts for the major proportion of tourists to Vietnam, with 778,431. Most Chinese tourists arrived in Vietnam through land border crossings.

For the next, the region with major tourism potential is the Asia-Pacific.

The ecological diversity, the richness in natural landscapes and the multi-ethnic culture of Vietnam form a strong point of Vietnam tourism. To take Vietnam to the World and to bring the World to Vietnam, apart from efforts of the Government of Tourism at the Central inclunding local levels, of tourist companies across the country, of representative offices overseas (mainly representatives of companies), appropriate attention of the National, in the form of enabling tourist policies and annual budge allocation of USD 1.3 to USD 1.5 M to the National Government of Tourism for tourism promotion, is required. The National Government of Tourism has launched a series of promotion drives in various key markets in the world. Building on the experience of those promotion events, marketing skills of the National Government of Tourism have been enhanced and have brought about tangible results, deepening the considerate of Vietnam by the world and thus resulting in additional and additional tourists visiting Vietnam.

Ecological and cultural tourism is usually linked with ethnic minority groups and with nature. Therefore, these forms of tourism are indispensable in the promotional drives of the Government of Tourism at all levels and of travel companies. To satisfy the needs for entertainment and study of tourists, Vietnam has paid attention to preserving the nature, forests, mountains, restoring and upgrading tourist infrastructure, protecting the cultural identity and lifestyle of the ethnic groups, inclunding the ethnic minorities in Dien Bien Phu and Sapa, etc. The National Government of Tourism is working in close cooperation with Ministries and local governments of those regions to work out master plans for tourist development. Tourist development in those regions has contributed to “alleviation of poverty”, thus helping the ethnic minority groups in those region to “resettle”, stabilizing their livelihood, protecting nature and preserving their cultural identity.

Tourist increase, in terms of headcounts of tourists, plus the all of vehicles always produces two types of impacts, both positive and negative. Fully aware of this fact, the Government of Vietnam and the Government of Tourism have taken specific measures to mitigate the negative impacts. The overwhelming goal is to develop “sustainable tourism” not only for Halong Bay, but as well for all localities, historical relics and other picturesque landscapes throughout the country. “Sustainable tourism” is not only the goal, but as well the operating principle of all organizations and individuals involved in tourism business in Vietnam. “Sustainable tourism” has become a subject in official curriculum of tourist training institutions and one topic of the mass media in education programs for community. Such community education programs as “Green Summer”, “Green, Clean and Beautiful Cities”, “Clean Seas, Clean Streets without noise pollution” and measures for waste management, for cleaning up oil leakage in the waterways, and for management of loose-construction-materials trucks, etc are concrete activities for sustainable tourism.

The policy of the Government and the Government of Tourism to develop tourist infrastructure aims at economic development, inclunding job creation for the people. As an economic sector, tourism has its own features which are the linkages with various sectors, localities and a large number of stakeholders and the requirements for a high standard of quality of services provided. Therefore, development of human resources in tourism is of great importance, particularly the contingent of tour managers, hotel managers, tour guides, receptionists, chefs, bar tenders, room service staffs, waiters and waitresses. At present, apart from universities, higher education institutions and secondary vocational training institutions which provide training in tourism under the management of Ministry of Education and Training and other relevant ministries, the National Government of Tourism has its own training system specialized in tourism training from vocational to higher education levels, capable of satisfying all the needs for above-mentioned high class services. The National Government of Tourism has made good use of the assistance of World Tourism Organization, of ATF, ASIANTA, PATA, etc. and Technical Assistance projects of the EU, Belgium, Luxembourg to invite foreign experts to provide training for human resource development. Over the completed period, experts of the World Tourism Organization have helped The National Government of Tourism to draft the Tourism Law. With the assistance of Belgium experts, two training courses in tourist management have been organized in Vietnam and two others in Belgium for personnel of the tourism sector of Vietnam. In addition, The National Government of Tourism has organized regular annual training courses. All this manifests that the National Government of Tourism has attached utmost importance to human resource development which is an indispensable factor for development.

The starting point of the Vietnam’s economy in general, and its tourism sector, inclunding travel, in particular, are both low and new as compared with the world. Nonetheless, thanks to its tremendous efforts and fast-moving reforms, and by “taking the short cut”, Vietnams tourist industry, inclunding travel, have caught up with the general development impetus, narrowing down the gap with the region and the world. At present, there are some 300 travel companies with world-class professionalism. These companies are capable of satisfying the needs of world-famous travel companies and of travelers requiring the highest standards. Most of the contingent of travel staffs, particularly international travel of our tourist industry have gone through regular and systematic training and have gained hands-on experience. However, in order to respond to ever-increasing request of the tourist market, the development of human resources for the tourist industry, particularly the training of tour guides requires a high degree of uniformity in terms of training content and time part the various training institutions. The National Government of Tourism has worked as a coordinator for the Ministry of Education and Training, universities, higher education institutions and secondary vocational training institutions, and thanks to this an initial uniformed training curriculum for tour guides has been agreed upon and put in practice. This is a breakthrough in unifying and standardizing training courses for tour guides at all levels.

Thailand started its tourist industry long before Vietnam. At the same time as Vietnam was at war, Thailand had the opportunity to develop its economy, inclunding tourism. At present, Thailand’s tourist industry is far additional advanced than Vietnam’s tourism industry, both in terms of number of international tourists (over 10 million) and in revenue from tourism. In the course of tourist development, on the one hand, Vietnam “mainly relies on its own”, and on the other learns from nations with additional developed tourist industry, inclunding Thailand. What we can learn from Thailand’s experience is that Thailand’s tourist promotion drives are always conducted on a national level and Thailand Prime Minister always appears at large events, such as AMAZING THAILAND in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis, and eating chicken himself to assure tourists in the wake of SARS in 2003 or to encourage travelers next the Tsumani in December 2004. As well, to allow a lot of sales points to encourage “shopping tourism” in various means and ways, most significant of which is a large budget allocation for this program. What Vietnam can learn from Thailand is that due consideration should be taken at the same time as developing cheap tours in a large scale to avoid uncontrollable situation at some stage.

As I mentioned above, promotion needs to be given due attention and a considerable budget should be allocated by the Government for this. Bays, lagoons and islands of Vietnam are precious assets. Halong Bay is regarded as the 8th wonder of the world. Nha Trang lagoon is one of the majority beautiful lagoons in the world. Suc islands as Cat Ba, Van Don (in Halong Bay), Cham islet (Quang Nam province) and islands in Nha Trang, Phu Quoc Island and, Con Dao Island are beautiful seascapes with ideal beaches and a lot of green flora. All these sites have great potentials for tourism. At present, some of these islands have attracted a large number of tourists. For example, Cat Ba Island receives over 150 thousand tourists per year, Phu Quoc island over 60 thousand, Con Dao over 20 thousand. The Government of Vietnam has plans to develop tourism at these islands so as to turn some of them into large tourist centers for Phu Quoc and Ha Long.

Investment in tourism accounts for an significant portion of FDI in Vietnam at present with 325 projects classified at tourism attracting, USD9.4 billion, mostly in hotel projects (157 ptojects), golf courts (13 projects) and office buildings (131 projects).

Most of the FDI projects are from Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and France. Projects from the US account for a very small proportion.

The US-Vietnam BTO creates favorable conditions for trade and tourism exchange between the two nations. The number of American tourists to Vietnam has seen quick increase over the last years. We hope that American investors will pay additional attention to Vietnam, particularly to the tourist industry, a very dynamic sector with a high increase rate in Vietnam. We are happy to create favorable conditions, provide support, data and other needed facilities to assist European and American investors to invest in Vietnam.

Tourism development in Vietnam started recently but has registered remarkable increase. Over the completed ten years, the Vietnamese tourism has expanded 8 times in terms of the number of foreign visitors and 10 times compared to that of domestic tourists. According to an assessment by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) in conjunction with Oxford Economic Forecasting (OEF), Vietnam is positioned in the 6th place part the ten nations are expected to show increase in the travel and tourism sector worldwide during the period of 2007 to 2016. Experts estimate that the number of foreign tourists in Vietnam will double, reaching additional than 7 million visitors in 2012. The new chief of Vietnam\'s Tourism Government Hoang Tuan Anh (Hoang Tuan Anh) intends to sharply increase the flow of visitors to the country.

He proposes to abolish the VAT on goods purchased by foreign tourists, employ foreign companies to promote tourism potential of Vietnam, and to abolish visas for citizens of all nations and to develop a ”caravan\" tourism. He as well wants to change the current tourism slogan \"Vietnam - The Hidden Charm\" to \"The Hidden Charm\". The development of tourism in the country suffered from a shortage of qualified specialists in this field, so the emphasis needs to be placed on improving the professionalism of the tourism industry. In addition, by the end of 2011, officials plan to increase the number of rooms in hotels in Vietnam to 170,000. In order to increase the number of international or oversee tourists in Vietnam, the officials need to take into consideration adequate and effective marketing strategies. These assessment and development of such strategies will help in the promotion of the brand “Vietnam”, positive brand image, and in the development of the in general tourism industry of the country.

Vietnam Airlines To Merge With Jetstar Pacific In December 2011, the Civil Aviation Government of Vietnam (CAAV) announced that Vietnam Airlines would merge with Jetstar Pacific, as a result of the low-cost airline’s ongoing financial troubles.

Vietnam Airlines will hold 70% of the smaller airline, returning to its original status as majority shareholder. While it is unclear what stake Qantas (which holds 27% in Jetstar Pacific) will decide to hold, it may be that Vietnam Airlines will decide to fold all the airline’s operations back into the national carrier’s brand name. This is particularly the case as Jetstar Pacific has at no time made money and Vietnam Airlines may decide that it does not make business sense to continue supporting the entity.

Major Hotel Complex Construction Agreed In a sign of confidence in the country’s rapidly expanding tourism industry, US company Las Vegas Sands has agreed a major hotel project to be constructed in Ho Chi Minh City. The resort will be designed in the shape of sails perched on a lotus and will include hotels, bars, restaurants and a theatre. The complex will total US$2bn and could mark the beginning of a new upsurge of casino developers investing in Vietnam.