Vietnam needs $43 bln to develop tourism

Vietnam will need to invest $42.5 billion in the next 10 years to develop its tourism infrastructure and services, said the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).
According to VNAT’s tourism development plan for 2011-2020, with such an investment, Vietnam will be able to increase the number of local tourists from 28 million people in 2010 to 47-48 million tourists by 2020 and international visitors from 5.05 million to 10-10.5 million arrivals.
Hoang Thi Diep, VNAT’s deputy director said, of this investment, 20 percent would come from the state budget and the remaining, from state-owned enterprises, private firms and foreign investments.
Nguyen Van Tuan, VNAT’s general director told the Voice of Vietnam, said the local tourism industry would spend the investment on 6 areas: attracting human resources for investment and tourism, developing unique and highly competitive products, building solid trademarks, promoting tourism activities and developing key tourism zones.
For his part, Tran Tuan Viet, general director of a joint stock tourism company in the southern province of Ba Ria Vung Tau, emphasized the need for cooperation among tourism companies.
Viet said local companies have not worked together to promote tourist activities and create unique products. To encourage cooperation, the role of tourism associations is very important, he said.
According to VNAT, till the end of November 2010, Vietnam had 625 investment projects in tourism, including tourism real estate with a total registered capital of nearly $12.3 billion. Last year’s income from tourism was VND98 trillion, or nearly $5 billion.
The tourism sector has attracted strong investment flows in recent years. Only in three years, from 2007 to 2010, the number of investment projects in tourism increased by 4-5 times.