Call to improve value of tourism services

The Viet Nam National Adminsitration for Tourism (VNAT) has suggested that Ha Noi authorities make tourism services and products more attractive and competitive.
At a recent meeting with the city's Department of Culture, Information and Tourism, VNAT director general Nguyen Van Tuan proposed that the department re-consider all planned activities to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long – Ha Noi and the National Tourism Year 2010, and to take full advantage of these big cultural events to attract more visitors and increase revenues for the city's tourism sector.
Tuan also asked Ha Noi authorities to take stronger measures to stop actions that cause annoyance to visitors at tourist sites in the city, including the Noi Bai Airport, the area around the Hoan Kiem (Sword) Lake and the Old Quarter.
The proposals were made after figures released by VNAT revealed that the number of international visitors to the capital city in the first quarter of 2010 – the year of big cultural events in the city – fell by 7.2 per cent compared with the same period last year.
According to a VNAT report, Ha Noi faced the slump in tourist arrivals at a time the number of international travellers to Viet Nam rose 36 per cent to 1.35 million in the first quarter. The numbers of foreign visitors to HCM City and central provinces also rose by 30 per cent compared with the same period last year.
In a recent press meeting in Ha Noi, the chief of VNAT's Travel Department, Vu The Binh, admitted that he was shocked at the critical tourism situation facing Ha Noi when the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long – Ha Noi was nearing.
Binh was quoted by the online newspaper VietnamNet as saying that the big jobs currently undertaken by the city, including preparations for the anniversary and the National Tourism Year 2010, were among the reasons behind the critical situation.
He said as the city authorities were focusing their efforts on these big cultural events, they had paid less attention to the minor measures to keep the city a good and attractive tourist destination, such as stabilising the costs of hotel rooms or improving its taxi services.
Travel firms have also blamed construction work for the drop in tourism after the traditional New Year holidays when many of the city's major tourist sites such as Sword Lake, Thanh Nien Road, Tran Quoc Pagoda and the Old Quarter started to be repaired to celebrate the city's anniversary.
Vietran Tour's director Dinh Nguyet Anh said that many tourists had asked to change hotels after one day in the Old Quarter. "œThe repairs should have been completed a long time ago to welcome visitors," Anh said.
Meanwhile, the city had paid little attention to tourism promotion campaigns, with authorities seemingly unaware of the distinction between which could help bring more guests to the city. The city authorities seemed not to distinguish tourism promotion from publicising its cultural characteristics, said Binh.
Too much money spent on festivals
Localities across the country are spending too much time and money in organising festivals every year, a member of the National Assembly's Standing Committee has warned.
Addressing a committee meeting last Friday, chairman of the National Assembly's Ethnic Council Ksor Phuoc said these festivals were "joyful but costly."
Phuoc did not reveal the money provincial authorities across the nation had spent on these festivals but asked the Government to unveil statistics about the spending for these events.
According to figures from the Communism magazine, more than 20 festivals are organised around the country on any given day. The magazine quoted a source from the cultural management authority as saying there were about 9,000 festivals at all levels held across the country every year, including 7,000 traditional festivals, 1,400 religious festivals, and 400 historical and revolutionary festivals.
Around 30 cultural festivals originating in other countries have been imported to Viet Nam in the past few decades.
In an article published by online newspaper VietnamNet, Dr Nguyen Xuan Dien said what organisers of these festivals tried to do were to collect fees and locate parking lots but unable to feature human and cultural values of these events.
Many traditonal and religious festivals of provincial, district and commune levels had been turned into "national" events to attract bigger crowds.
Dien said bringing traditional festivals on to the stage had helped "distort" cultural characteristic values of these events.
He also asked relevant authorities to take measures to review the organising of these festivals and save their cultural and historical values.
Imported cars prove difficult to sell
Despite discounts and other promotions, auto showrooms are finding it difficult to find customers for their imported cars. Although the number of imported cars has dropped, owners of these shops reveal that those already imported have been unsold since late 2009.
"The door for imported cars has been narrowed," said the director of a big importing company in HCM City. The importer, who declined to be named, revealed that he sold only two imported cars in April, compared with 30 to 40 in the same period last year.
He said with 130 imported cars currently in stock, he had to pay VND2.7 billion a month in interest on bank loans.
If the current critical situation remained unchanged, 50 per cent of car importers like his company would face bankrupcy, he said.
Pham Huu Tam, director of the Tradoco Auto Shop in HCM City's Binh Chanh District, said the company had been selling three cars per month of late, a tenth of the number sold per month in the same period last year.
Online newswire VnExpress also quoted the owner of an auto salon in Ha Noi as saying that customers were having much better choices when purchasing cars as there were so many unsold imported cars. He said that tightened credit and the global economic turmoil were major reasons behind the current critical stuation in the imported auto market.
Most auto shop owners believe that the local market for imported cars would remain sluggish for the next quarter and the acute competition can result in the bankrupcy of 30 to 50 per cent of car importers.
According to the General Department of Customs, some 5,800 cars were imported to Viet Nam in February and March 2010, less than half the same period last year.
It has categorised cars in the list of goods which need import restrictions and the Finance Ministry has revealed plans to raise the registration fee on imported cars to 15 per cent.
Meanwhile, in April this year, 9,551 cars made in Viet Nam were sold in the local market, a year-on-year increase of 23 per cent, according to the Viet Nam Auto Manufacturers' Association (VAMA).
However, in the first four months of 2010, VAMA members attained a growth rate of just 5 per cent compared with the same period last year.