Hanoi (VNA) ꦍ– Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung has signed off an action plan for tourism development in the 2021 - 2025 period that focuses on promoting digital transformation, turning tourism into a spearhead sector, and gradually making Vietnam an attractive destination and one of the 50 countries with the strongest tourism competitiveness in the world.

Despite an unprecedented crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the action plan still identifies seven focal tasks: reviewing, assessing, and perfecting institutions and policies on tourism development; applying modern technology to the sector; developing tourism infrastructure; developing products and managing tourism service quality in a professional and substantive manner; assisting travel businesses to recover and grow amid the pandemic’s impacts; developing high-quality human resources and a sustainable tourism labour market; and stepping up tourism promotion and cooperation with international partners. Among these tasks, special attention is paid to digital transformation and support for businesses to recover. Under this action plan, the entire sector is set to foster the application of science and technology; conduct digital transformation to help carry out the national digital transformation programme until 2025, with a vision to 2030; build a national database on tourism; surveying, assessing, classifying, and digitalising Vietnam’s tourism resources; forming a digital information system on tourist sites and tourism service supplying establishments; building a digital information system on Vietnam’s tourism market; and ensuring the consistency of relevant statistics between central and local agencies. The sector will make and implement projects and plans on developing smart tourism and management models, utilise modern technology to develop software and apps aiding tourism management and serving holidaymakers, help travel companies connect with one another and make innovations, and increase the use of green and clean technology at tourism service and accommodation facilities. With regard to assistance for travel firms to recover amid impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed the timely issuance and implementation of financial, credit, employment, and manpower training mechanisms and policies to help enterprises, communities, and people involved in tourism maintain operations and overcome difficulties. Other policies will also be promulgated to support companies, communities, and people working in the tourism sector to reform business models, develop new products and boost tourism promotion, while shoring up and fostering the travel market. Relevant agencies are going to simplify related administrative procedures and propose the reduction of fees for the companies and service establishments hit by the pandemic. The action plan emphasises the importance of coordination among ministries, sectors, and localities to help this “green” industry weather hardships caused by COVID-19, develop sustainably, and become a spearhead sector of the national economy. The action plan, devised basing on opinions from policymakers, experts, enterprises, and those working in the tourism industry, aims to carry out the Party’s guidelines and viewpoints stated in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress, and to achieve the targets and perform the tasks set for the sector in the Government’s Resolution 50/NQ-CP, issued on May 20, 2021, on the action plan for implementing the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress. Vietnam’s tourism sector has been hardest-hit by COVID-19 as the number of foreign tourists in the first six months of 2021 saw a year-on-year plunge of 97.6 percent with only 88,200. Tourism revenue only reached 4.5 trillion VND (197.64 million USD), down 51.8 percent. Some 95 percent of travel companies have to cease operations or switch to other sectors./.