The statement was made by Director General of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Nguyen Trung Khanh at his recent meeting with Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung to review tourism activities in the first four months of 2023 and discuss orientations for recovering Vietnam’s international tourism markets in the remaining months of this year.
According to Google’s market trend tracker tool, the volume of international searches for Vietnam’s tourism has surged by 10-25 percent, the eleventh-highest increase in the world.
Vietnam and the Philippines are the only two countries in Southeast Asia to be named in the list of countries with highest volume of searches for tourism.
Large volumes of searches for Vietnam tourism information are most seen in the US, Japan, Australia, Singapore, India, Thailand, France, Germany, the UK, and the Republic of Korea (RoK).
Based on analysis, VNAT Director General Khanh forecast that the RoK will remain as the largest destination of Vietnam's tourism.
It is necessary to foster communication programmes on a larger scale while taking advantage of digital communication channels and social networks.
VNAT Director General Nguyen Trung Khanh
He noted that in the context that Vietnam and RoK have upgrade their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, and a memorandum of understanding for the 2023-2024 period was signed by the two countries' National Administrations of Tourism, the number of RoK tourists to Vietnam will continue to increase in the coming time.
While assessing the Chinese market, Khanh argued that although the Chinese market is in the third position, it is expected to recover at a faster rate than other markets due to its large market size and the great travel demand of the people.
The Chinese visitor market is expected to recover faster from the summer of 2023 and increase sharply in October, when Chinese people celebrate their National Day, and in the last months of this year.
Meanwhile, the Australian and Indian markets are having opportunities to increase the number of visitors to Vietnam, as resulted from the fact that Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet have just opened direct flights connecting major cities with the two countries.
In Southeast Asia, markets in Thailand and Cambodia are recovering well, similar to the time before the COVID-19 pandemic. The two markets are predicted to remain its growth rate thanks to their close geographic distance with Vietnam.
In order to promote the recovery of the international tourism market, the VNAT leader called for more favourable policies to facilitate visas and entry-exit for visitors to Vietnam.
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Visitors to a booth of Vietnam at the Paris Fair 2023 (Photo: NDO/Minh Duy) |
He stressed the need to further invest in developing tourism infrastructure, create high-class and attractive tourism products such as MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism and golf tourism, as well as to increase flight routes connecting Vietnam with key markets.
It is also necessary to foster communication programmes on a larger scale while taking advantage of digital communication channels and social networks.
Sharing the same view, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung stressed that the tourism industry sector should pay greater attention to promoting policy communication, especially regarding door-reopening policies as well as visa policy and entry and exit policy, to international markets and partners
He asked the sector to thoroughly analyse and forecast the market for localities and businesses in order to design proper promotion activities for each market.
Closer collaboration between the hospitality sector and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad and overseas Vietnamese communities is also needed to actively promote communication activities and tourism information to international friends, he added.
He suggested to take advantage of social networks such as Facebook and TikTok to create short media clips advertising Vietnam tourism.
Regarding the promotion activities at international key markets, the Minister requested the tourism sector to make full preparation to participate in major fairs in China and Japan, connecting with ministries, as well as cultural activities in India, RoK, Australia, and New Zealand.
Regarding domestic tourism, he urged localities to strengthen management at tourist sites, develop new and attractive tourist products while strictly handling legal violations in tourism in order to improve visitors’ travel experience.
He reiterated that tourism development as an important task in the implementation of socio-economic development plan of each locality.
