Land travel on the way of development

In recent years, road infrastructure in Vietnam has been improved, including international border gates and particularly the Trans-Asia Highway linking Vietnam with neighbouring countries of big potential of land travel.
Despite favourable conditions, tourist arrivals by land make up a modest proportion of 20% of total international arrivals to Vietnam. This derives from difficulties and limits in exit-and-entry procedures, transportation, infrastructure and tourist products… which could only be resolvable by harmonising coordination between relevant agencies and effective cooperation in tourism among regional nations.
Vietnam borders China, Laos and Cambodia with the land borderline of around 4,550 km and 100 border gates. This advantage could help attract tourists to Vietnam via neighbouring countries, approaching ASEAN and international source markets. Thanks to the development of intra-regional land travel, ASEAN travellers who tour Vietnam via border gates in the Central and the South are becoming an essential source market of Vietnam. And a new brand-name of ‘caravan tourism’ (travelling by private cars) has emerged. By the end of 2005, the coordination between Vietnam, Laos and Thailand governments has formed caravan tourism, allowing tourists to travel by their own cars via border gates on national highways 8, 9 and 40. During the last 3 years, international travel firms have organised tours for some 200 caravan groups with nearly 3,500 cars and 11,000 tourist arrivals to Vietnam. Caravan tourism has contributed to development of other forms of land travel, luring 60,000 – 90,000 arrivals via border gates in the Central. The preliminary achievement shows that land travel could bring practical benefits and be a strong point of Vietnam tourism.
During the period from 2003 to 2007, the proportion of land travellers was reducing, which, on the other hand, gained considerable recovery in 2008 with growth rate of 19%. Due to current global economic recession, tourism demand has decreased significantly and international tourists tend to choose close destinations instead of long-haul tours. This, as the result, negatively affected international arrivals to Vietnam, including land travellers who, in the first half of 2009, decreased by one third comparing to the same period last year. Meanwhile, Vietnam tourism infrastructure has been being improved. Increasing trend of land travellers, especially those from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and other nationals could be seen. An additional favourable condition is that China has just allowed its citizens to travel Vietnam by passports. The practical situation requires Vietnam tourism sector and relevant agencies to develop appropriate policies to ensure the effectiveness in exploiting these source markets.
Transportation sector, in addition to continuing to improve national highways in accordance with planed technical standards and signed international agreements, needs to cooperate with relevant localities and sectors to develop and complete roads linking national highways with tourist spots; place signals and instructions in several foreign languages along tourist routes; raise quality and safety of transportation vehicles. Functional bodies should also allow raising car speed at some certain tourist routes from border gates to tourist centers which have been fully completed. There should be more open policies encouraging investment in tourist rest stops along some main national highways, particularly those from border gates in the Central to tourist destinations in the area.
Regarding tourism promotion and market research, it is necessary for tourism sector to conduct comprehensive promotional campaigns towards certain international market segments; focus on developing tourist products suitable for Greater Mekong Sub-region countries and other international source markets via East-West Economic Corridor; using printed materials in local languages and Internet as a tool to promote Vietnam tourism.
Indispensable factors which help foster land travel are the inter-sector coordination and legal environment. Fees at border gates should also be lowered and united to reduce tour cost and increase tourist flows.
Draft of Decree on management over road vehicles taken into Vietnam by foreigners should be soon submitted to the Government, which will create a legal path for caravan tourism development. Tourist products and transportation vehicles need to be diversified and improved in quality. There should be more investment in infrastructure, high-class resorts in the Central and appropriate products for land travel.
Vietnam tourism should strengthen the cooperation with Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, as well as Malaysia, Singapore and China, trying to draw land travellers and caravan tourists in particular.
Land travel could contribute to the stability of tourist flows and be of great potential for Vietnam tourism. Priority policies for caravan tourism, legal documents on management over road vehicles taken into Vietnam by foreigners, progressive investment in main tourist routes, increasing cooperation among neighbouring countries… would facilitate travel firms in receiving customers, fulfilling international tourists’ demands, contributing to speeding up land travel in Vietnam.