Hanoi (VNA) 🍌– A “revolution” in both mindset and action is needed for the whole tourism sector, not only businesses, when old methods have no longer been effective.

The fourth Industrial Revolution allows no one to stay standstill, as standstill means being lagged behind and kicked out of the “game”. Luckily, leaders of the tourism sector have recognised the situation and started to act.

Awaited “handshake”

Online tourism comprises many activities, among which e-marketing receives the greatest attention. Over the past two years, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has worked with the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board to implement a programme to launch e-marketing on tourism and promote Vietnamese destinations with new forms. Dinh Ngoc Duc, head of the Department of Tourism Market under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said that the agency has built a new website at vietnam.travel, which specialises in popularising tourism and introducing destinations in Vietnam. “We have registered new accounts in social networks and called for tourism experts’ engagement with new views and approaches. This work is conducted smoothly,” said Duc. Meanwhile, the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board has supported the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism to promote tourism onYoutube, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Depending on markets, the board will decide which social network will be used as key channel and how to operate them. Normally, the agency will invite influencers to write stories or famous photographers to post photos and videos to draw viewers. Last year, the board launched two contests namely My Vietnam and Vietnam Nows to get more contents from users. In the past, 70 percent of access to the main website of Vietnamese tourism is from Vietnamese and 30 percent from foreigners. “Currently, we are working to reverse the figures to create a change in quality,” said Hoang Nhan Chinh, head of the board’s Secretariat. In reality, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has designed a e-marketing strategy, but its approach needs to be changed to suit the current booming technology era. According to Chinh, websites and social networks for Vietnamese tourism promotion focus on English-speaking markets so they have English version and contents written by experts from the US and Canada. By this way, the sector will get closer to international tourists, thus luring them to Vietnam to explore. To this end, the board has made careful study on the demands of tourists to Vietnam, including where they would like to visit and what the website has affected their decision.

Making full use of “local culture”

According to some startupsin tourism technology, the deep understanding of local culture is the strength of domestic online travel agencies compared to foreign ones. And their job is to meet the demand of customers to win the market and regain the “piece of cake” that is being taken by 80 percent right at home. Besides, experts held that a data system with full information on destinations, services and products and overall information on tourism is crucial for the development of Vietnam’s online tourism in this period. Although many localities and businesses have actively built their database, the work has stopped at individual level. Therefore, it is necessary to share and connect together for the building of a national data network, which will help Vietnamese companies to compete with their foreign rivals. However, if companies only focus on online tourism and ignore the ensuring of product quality, they will easily lose their “points”. This means the prestige of their brand as well as their business efficiency will be affected. In this period, one of the important solutions that insiders must concentrate on is to enhance skills to use online platforms and manage data to increase competitiveness for businesses, especially small- and medium-sized ones, and promote destinations in remote areas. According to Vu The Binh, Vice Standing Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, support policies are needed to develop a strong digital ecology, thus increasing opportunities for destinations and companies as well as managers, and creating cooperation between stakeholders for common sustainable growth. With these encouraging “steps”, Binh and other members of the associationhave foundations to hope for the “smokeless industry” to take off in the future./.