Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Foreign onlinetravel agencies have been dominating the online tourism market in Vietnam.

According to the Vietnam e-CommerceAssociation, online tourism was growing rapidly and might generateopportunities for the tourism industry to make breakthroughs. However, majorityof the international tourists to Vietnam used services provided by the foreignbooking websites, and even local tourists tended to make their bookings throughforeign platforms, rather than the local ones, the association noted.

Vietnamese online travel agency gotadi.comsaid that the market share of room bookings made online had seen a significantrise recently, accounting for some 30 percent to 40 percent of the totaltourists.

The travel agency said that the online roombooking sector was dominated by foreign platforms, adding that two of them —agoda and booking — were together estimated to account for more than 80 percentof the online hotel booking market. They accounted for bookings made by boththe Vietnamese tourists travelling abroad, as well as those travellingdomestically, and for foreign tourists coming to Vietnam.

Ngo Minh Duc from the Tourism AdvisoryBoard said that the online tourism industry was not easy, especially as foreignfirms were more experienced and advanced in technology.

According to a representative from travelagency Vietravel, hotels preferred to co-operate with online travel agenciesowing to their well-established brand value and the high ratio of revenuesharing. Besides these, the foreign firms had better financial capacity, sothey can afford to reserve rooms in good locations.

Nguyen Ngoc Dung, Deputy President of Vietname-Commerce, said that to compete with the foreign websites, Vietnameseplatforms must focus more on meeting the demand of tourists.

 “TheVietnamese online booking platforms must be more user-friendly,” Dung said.

Also, competitive prices were among themost decisive factors, Dung added.

Le Van Son from Nha Trang TourismAssociation urged the local platforms to improve their financial capacity, andinvest more in technologies and online advertising.

In addition to this, co-operation withbanks and insurance firms must be enhanced to develop convenient and securepayment solutions for users.

The local platforms should also focus onmarket researches to create appropriate products with competitive prices for tourists,he added.

A study by Google found that the value ofthe Southeast Asian online travel market was expected to jump to 90 billion USDby 2025 from 22 billion USD in 2015, with Vietnam set to account for around 10 percentof it. At least 85 percent of the value would be poured into room and flightticket bookings.

According to the General Statistics Office,the foreign tourist arrivals to Vietnam reached a record high of nearly 1.3million in August, rising by 18.5 percent over the previous month and 35.1 percentover the same month last year.

During the period between January andAugust, foreign tourist arrivals totalled nearly 8.5 million, up 29.7 percentover the same period last year.

Vietnam has planned to attract around 17million to 20 million foreign tourist arrivals, and 82 domestic tourists by2020, with the tourism industry contributing 10 percent to the gross domesticproduct by generating 35 billion USD in revenue.

By 2030, Vietnam has planned to become oneof the leading tourism countries in Southeast Asia. - VNA