Hanoi (VNA) – Experts gathered at the Vietnam Travel & Tourism Summit 2019 held in Hanoi on December 9 to discuss measures tohelp the Vietnamese tourism thrive in the future.

The first solution is revitalisingnational tourism promotion to inspire more foreigners to visit Vietnam. Participantscontributed their ideas to improve the nation’s tourism messages and theoperation of tourism offices abroad.

They emphasized the need for the early launch of a tourism development supportfund, while other discussions dealt with how to address problems such asovercharging tourists, food safety and safety for visitors.

Experts also discussed how to improve tourists’ experience in preparing andplanning Vietnam visits, considering the fact many visitors face difficultiesin using Vietnamese online tourism services, such as real products not matchingadvertisements and a lack of direct consultancy.  

Meanwhile, increasing tourism products, improving infrastructure, ensuring asafe environment, enhancing human resources quality and applying informationtechnology are also key issues put on table.

Experts from an EU-funded project proposed piloting an index to rate thecompetitiveness of destinations in Vietnam.

Participants also mentioned the development of aviation to serve tourismdevelopment.

Vu The Binh, ViceChairman of the Tourism Association, said tourism is an interdisciplinaryeconomic sector, requiring the support of many industries and localities.

“There must be particular strategies to develop the services and products ofdestinations in each locality as well as preserving their traditional culturalvalue,” he said.

Many destinations in remote areas are difficult to access, thus localitiesshould prioritise connecting roads, besides attaching environmentalprotection to tourism development, he added.

Tran Trong Kien,Chairman of the National Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), said Vietnam’s tourismindustry had seen constant changes.

“In the past 10 years, most tourists booked their tours through travelagencies. Now, with the appearance of the internet, they have many more choicesin their travel plans and journeys,” Kien said.

He suggested tourism enterprises start collecting information on customer dataand use the information to provide services, helping enhance experiencesfor visitors.

The Government also needed to support firms to form a common database topromote the country’s tourism on digital channels, he added.

The number of foreign visitors to Vietnam has been growing at a two-digit rate,but the return rate is low at somewhere between 10-40 percent, heard the summit.

According to statisticsof the Vietnam National Administrationof Tourism under the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism, internationalvisitors’ spending in the country for a nine-day tour averaged only 1,000 USD, partly due to a lack of diverse products andservices.  

“In the recentlyreleased Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) 2019 released by theWorld Economic Forum (WEF), Vietnam jumped four places from the latest 2017 ranking, which shows thecountry has improved in competitiveness,” said Deputy Minister of Culture,Sports and Tourism Le Quang Tung.

However, Vietnam still lags in the region considerably withregards to its tourist service and air transport infrastructure, weakness inenvironmental sustainability, the lack of product and location diversification,transport and services infrastructure and low-skilled labour force.

“Promotion activitieshave not showed actual effectiveness due to limited resources, loose operationmechanisms, a lack of overseas tourism promotion offices, the yet-operationaltourism support fund and the overloaded airport infrastructure, which is unableto keep up with the growth of the number of tourists,” Tung said.

Vietnam’s visa regime,which has been liberalised in recent years, still lags compared to moreopen visa policies of key regional competitors, such as Thailand, Indonesia andMalaysia, he said. 

Therefore, the forum is a national-scale event aiming to offer initiatives andsolutions to overcome the limitations of Vietnam’s tourism sector, hesaid.

The Vietnam Travel & Tourism Summit 2019 was held by the government’sAdvisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, the Ministry of Culture,Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), the Vietnam TourismAssociation and VnExpress online newspaper./.