Vietnam drums up tourism in China

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on Wednesday organized a road show in China’s Zhejiang Province to promote travel to Vietnam.
According to the Travel Department under VNAT, the Culture, Sports and Tourism departments in HCMC, Quang Ninh, Quang Nam and Danang as well as other relevant departments are taking part in the promotion activities.
China and Vietnam have agreed to cooperate to develop tourism products and to promote tourism.
The country’s tourism sector organized a similar program in Jiangsu Province on Monday.
The events have attracted about 100 Chinese tour operators, officials and media and Chinese tour operators and media have asked about Vietnam’s tourism incentives and policies to attract tourists from the neighboring country.
The program in Jiangsu Province had positive results as the two sides agreed to exchange familiarization trips to survey tourist attractions and to support programs to promote destinations. In addition, they agreed to cooperate to promote tourism on TV and in various other media and to cooperate to train human resources, especially tour guides.
Vu The Binh, head of VNAT, said that the administration had signed a memorandum of understanding to develop tourism with tourism bureaus in the two provinces.
Some local and Chinese enterprises pledged that they would send tourists to each other after the promotion program.
Binh said the tourism sector would also organize a similar promotion program in Shanghai.
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will visit both provinces as well as the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
VNAT reported that China is the tourism sector’s biggest source market. About 227,800 Chinese people have visited Vietnam already this year, up 115% year-on-year.
The tourism sector has increased promotion activities in China over the past two years to recover the number of travelers in the country.
Nearly 528,000 Chinese visitors visited Vietnam last year, still lower than the record number of 778,000 in 2004.
The tourism sector is more interested in Chinese tourists who travel to Vietnam with passports, as they spend more than others who travel with laissez-passer. Such travelers have ranked about 20% in total Chinese visitors to Vietnam in the past. However, the number increased to 50% last year.