Vietnam adjourns revising down tourism target as arrivals revive

Tourism officials at a meeting on Monday decided not yet to reduce the target of international arrivals from the old target of 4.5 million this year to around 3.7 to 3.8 million as tentatively agreed, as latest figures show a strong revival in the rest of the year.
Nguyen Van Tuan, head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, told the Daily on Monday that the administration once thought the new target at 3.7 to 3.8 million tourists, but the actual number last month and new feedback gave tourism officials a second thought.
“We are receiving a good signal so we will launch the new decision after receiving the result of this month,” he said.
He said the country is pinning high hopes in the recovery of the inbound sector in the high season that is now underway.
According to the General Statistics Office, the number of international tourists to Vietnam for the first time this year has increased in August, with nearly 315,000 visitors, up 16% against that in July.
Tuan said the substantial increase prompted the national tourism agency to hold an optimistic view for the rest of this year. However, given the big decline in the first few months of the year, a recession in the country’s tourism industry is inevitable.
“It’s impossible to say that Vietnam’s tourism can maintain the number of foreign tourists this year, but we want to minimize the decline,” he said.
He pinned high hopes on China as the biggest source market for Vietnam.
Of nearly 2.5 million international arrivals into Vietnam in the first eight months of this year, visitors from China totaled more than 300,000.
Tuan said that both tourism agencies and travel companies have received good feedback from a promotion trip to China late last month.
“The rising number of visitors from this leading market will help the whole industry,” Tuan said.
It is unlikely Vietnam can welcome 3.9 million international visitors this year given the low figure in the eight months, but Tuan said even the target of 3.7 to 3.8 million was still much better than earlier estimates.
In the middle of this year, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh feared that the outbreak of the swine flu and the financial crisis would make the number of international arrivals to drop around 20% in this year, or around 840,000, meaning a low scenario of only some 3.4 million visitors.
Vietnam welcomed over 4.2 million foreign visitors last year, up 0.6% compared to 2007.