Vietnam Tourism Toward Impressive and Sustainable Growth

The Vietnamese tourism industry has completed its objectives in the Vietnam Tourism Development Strategy in the period from 2001 to 2010 but it has not attested its role as a spearhead economic sector.
Growth is impressive …
In the past nearly 10 years, tourism service and administration activities have been changed much. Results of tourism activities reflected important growths and contributed to the cause of national industrialisation and modernisation, demonstrated by the increasing proportion of the industry in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Vietnam only served 2.33 million international visitor arrivals in 2001 but the figure was 4.235 million arrivals in 2008, representing an annual growth of 8.91 per cent per annum. Domestic visitor arrivals reached 20.5 million in 2008, representing a growth 8.34 per cent per annum.
Tourist product systems as well as infrastructure systems are improved not only in quantity but also in quality. With respect to accommodation facilities, in 2008, the country had 4,856 accommodation facilities with 123,050 rooms, including 296 facilities ranked from three stars to five stars. The room growth was 15.16 per cent per annum.
The number of international and domestic travel companies continuously increased to serve growing number of tourists. By the end of June 2009, the Southeast Asian nation had 764 licensed international travel companies, more than 10,000 domestic travel companies, and 6,000 international tour guides (at the end of 2008).
Travel companies of Vietnam have caught up with the levels of foreign travel firms, expanded cooperation and enlarged market shares.
The most notable change is the soaring investment capital amount for tourism industry by both domestic and international investors. Many world-class seaside resorts and ecological tourist sites have given a facelift to the Vietnamese tourism industry and made Vietnam a promising tourist centre of the region and the world. Incomes in foreign currencies increased from US$2.3 billion in 2005 to US$4 billion in 2008.
Tourism not only creates a good economic source but also affected many social aspects, especially job creation and poverty reduction for the people. At present, the tourism industry has 1,035,000 labourers, of which 285,000 people are direct workers and 750,000 people are indirect workers. As much as 42.5 per cent of tourism workers are certified and some 40.8 per cent of the tourism workforce can speak English, Chinese, French and other languages. Human resources training for tourism industry have been improved. The country now has 40 universities with tourism training units, 43 tourism vocational high schools and hundreds of small-scaled tourism training centres.
… but unsustainable
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the development of the tourism industry was below the actual potentiality and the tourism industry has not attested its role as a spearhead economic sector. At present, Vietnam ranked fifth in Southeast Asia in terms of tourism. Vietnam has a long coast with many famously beautiful beaches but the country fails to bring its potentialities into full play. The professionalism of the Vietnamese tourism service industry remains weak and it is easily found in all states from management, promotion, advertisement and marketing to service workforce. Vietnam has not actually created trademarks, impressed and attracted tourists.
Thus, in the coming time, the tourism industry will continue advancing promotion activities in foreign countries. Besides, the diversification and improvement of tourist product and services also need more care. The linkage in developing tourism based on regional and territorial characteristics is proven its effectiveness and the tourism industry will pay more attention to this linkage to create interesting and characteristic tourism products and services to eliminate boredom of visitors. At present, Vietnam has many attractive places of interest but they remained “hidden charms.”
According to experts, Vietnam has rich potentialities to develop tourism. To exploit these advantages and created beautiful impressions on international friends, the Vietnamese tourism industry needs a concrete strategy to ensure not only immediate economic effects but also ensure impressive and sustainable growth.