Tourism assoc keen to open Japan office

The Vietnam Tourism Association (VTA) is calling for members and sponsors to jointly carry out a project to open a representative office for the local tourism industry in Japan.
A local tourism company’s staff member (R) introduces services to a representative of a Japanese firm in a marketing program hosted by Vietnam Airlines.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) last year signed an agreement with Japanese partners to open the office in Japan but has failed to do so up to now.
The office would provide tourism information, organize tourism promotions in Japan, offer consulting services to Japanese investors eyeing the local tourism industry, and support tour sales to Japanese visitors, said Vu The Binh, vice chairman of VTA.
As the office would need some US$300,000 for operation annually, VTA has called for members and other sources to join the scheme. The local tourism industry welcomes more than 500,000 Japanese visitors annually and is looking to raise the figure to one million in the next few years. Therefore, setting up a representative office in this important visitor-generating market is needed to attract more visitors to the country.
Given the huge operational capital, VTA needs to mobilize capital from various sources and asks for support from the State, Binh said, adding it is necessary to establish an office overseas to develop local tourism.
The establishment of a number of representative offices in the country’s major foreign markets has been repeatedly proposed by local hotels and tour operators over the years. At the end of 2011, VNAT drew up a plan to set up the first two offices abroad, with one in Japan and the other in South Korea.
VNAT in early 2012 clinched a memorandum of understanding with its Japanese partners on opening the office in Tokyo either late last year or early this year but the plan is not yet materialized.
At a nationwide web conference on tourism held last Thursday, a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested the local tourism industry make use of diplomatic channels to promote local tourism overseas. While budgets set aside for tourism promotions are minimal, over 100 diplomatic representative agencies overseas are considered the most low-cost marketing channels that the industry needs to utilize.