Master plan helps boost tourism sector

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and its Institute for Tourism Development Research held a conference on February 28 to review the implementation of the Tourism Development Master Plan from 1995-2010.
Vietnam received 1.3 million international tourists in 1995, more than 2.1 million in 2000, and five million in 2010, according to reports at the conference. The number of domestic tourists soared from seven million in 1995 to 28 million in 2010.
The tourism sector earned VND6.4 trillion in revenues in 1995 and more than VND96 trillion in 2010. It also attracted a great amount of domestic and foreign investment in various tourism projects.
Dr Pham Trung Luong, Deputy Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, said the tourism sector helped boost social development by providing jobs and stimulating the growth of many other industries. Tourism also played an active role in promoting national culture, he said.
However, the master plan was not very effective in terms of economics, Luong said, attributing this situation to bad anticipation of such factors as the global economic crisis and epidemics. He also pointed out inexperience in tourism development as an important culprit.
The conference agreed on some issues like raising public awareness, strengthening state management of tourism, and developing human resources for the industry to improve its competitiveness.