Tourism promotion to expand overseas

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s chief Nguyen Van Tuan said tourism and aviation agencies will join hands to open representative offices abroad.
Tuan said offices will be opened in the five key markets this year with further details to be released at a later date.
At a recent workshop on Vietnam’s tourism promotion, experts discussed areas of weakness. La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that promotion is a top priority for the sector. However, Vietnam has not had an overseas representative in the last ten years.
“If we lack funds for it, the VNAT can cooperate with Vietnam Airlines to have its representatives at Vietnam Airlines’ overseas offices to introduce Vietnamese tourism to foreign visitors,” Khanh suggested.
He also said that it is necessary to hire professional media firms in host countries to organize tourism events because they understand the demands of travelers in their countries.
Paul Stoll, managing director of the Celadon International Consulting Company, said that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism should hire foreign prestigious advertising companies to design and implement a strategy to advertise Vietnamese tourism to the world. For each country, Vietnam should hire local advertising firms to implement its tourism promotion campaign in that country.
Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Tran Chien Thang commented that the tourism sector spends a lot of money organizing foreign tourism fairs but when the fairs end, no agency is responsible to maintain contacts with foreign partners.
At the workshop, officials of a number provinces asked the VNAT to empower and allocate funds for locals to implement activities to promote tourism. The provinces of Quang Ninh, Lao Cai and Nghe An has asked the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to give them the right to promote tourism in China, Laos and northeastern parts of Thailand.
Deputy Minister agreed with the proposal, saying that last year the Ministry authorized HCM City to advertise Vietnamese tourism in Australia and Malaysia successfully.
The funding for tourism promotion is estimated at 150 billion dong (around $10 million) for the last ten years. However, these activities are said to ineffective. This year, the VNAT plans to attract tourists from the Northeast Asia (China, Japan, South Korea), Southeast Asia and Australia, New Zealand and expand into Western Europe, North America, the Middle East and India.