Tourism awaits boost from Chinese visitors

Immediately implement the plan to welcome guests

Late on the evening of March 8, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism informed the Cultural Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam that the Chinese government had decided to include Vietnam in the pilot list for opening group tourism in the second phase, starting from March 15.

Du lịch chờ cú hích từ khách Trung Quốc - Ảnh 1. — China's official opening of tourism to Vietnam is expected to create a new breakthrough for the tourism industry.

The very next morning, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Tourism Ha Van Sieu urgently took on the task of developing a plan to welcome visitors from this "giant" market, reporting to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Government at the upcoming scheduled meeting. At the same time, domestic airlines also urgently met to discuss plans to deploy a flight network to China because they had previously had to temporarily postpone the operation period until the end of April or May to wait for the next decisions of this country on allowing tourists to come to Vietnam.

Before the pandemic, China was the largest tourist market for Vietnam tourism, accounting for 1/3 of the international market share of airlines. Every week, Vietnamese airlines operated more than 200 flights to many provinces and cities in China. Therefore, since this market officially opened, Vietnam's national airline Vietnam Airlines has proactively planned to fully restore flights to China, expecting that visitors visiting relatives, workers, and business travelers will quickly help this market recover by about 20% after 1-2 months and will continue to accelerate, recovering to 50% of 2019.

Responding to Thanh Nien early on March 9, a representative of Vietnam Airlines said that the operation plan will certainly change, but the Chinese market has its own characteristics, and it is not as simple as opening the market and flying immediately. Vietnam Airlines' representative office in China is continuing to negotiate to deploy flights to China as soon as possible.

Tourism expert Nguyen Van Thanh, former Vice President of Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, is excited that this is good news for Vietnam's tourism industry. In the context of long-distance tourism markets facing many difficulties due to economic crisis and political conflicts, the flow of Chinese tourists returning from March 15, if it quickly recovers about 50 - 60% compared to the pre-pandemic period, Vietnam will have secured 3 - 4 million international visitors. Along with nearly 3.7 million visitors to Vietnam in 2022, many tourism attraction policies have been implemented, the goal of welcoming 8 million international visitors in 2023 is completely confident to achieve.

However, that is not the most important thing. According to Mr. Thanh, before the pandemic, Chinese visitors accounted for more than 70% of international visitors to Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa. Although in 2022, the number of domestic visitors increased dramatically and there were a few groups of visitors from Korea, Thailand, and Europe, it was still nothing compared to the actual number of 80,000 - 90,000 accommodation establishments in the province. Therefore, even though domestic tourism has recovered beyond 2019, there are still many hotels and restaurants in Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa that have not reopened. It was only when there was news that China was opening up to tourism that a series of large and small hotels began to renovate, and investors urgently rented kiosks and shop houses in the Western quarter to welcome "regular customers".

"The VegaCity super urban area is preparing to open in April with the expectation of becoming a Southeast Asian-scale commercial and tourist city; the 5-star Meliá hotel, advertised as the best in the entire system in Vietnam, is also ready to launch. Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa has prepared such a large investment, if Chinese tourists do not come, it will be very difficult," Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh emphasized.

Reorganize the market to welcome "big customers"

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, China alone brought in $200 billion in revenue for world tourism. Chinese people travel everywhere in groups, in huge numbers. Therefore, this is the object of competition for all tourism sectors, every country is "looking" at this super big cake.

As soon as China opened its tourism doors but still closed them to Vietnam, Thailand "took advantage of the situation", attracting 1.38 million Chinese tourists during the 2023 Lunar New Year alone. Previously, the Thai government expected to welcome at least 5 million Chinese tourists this year, but only expected to reach about 300,000 in the first quarter. However, in less than a month of the Lunar New Year, the number of visitors exceeded the target by nearly 5 times. Malaysia also set a target of welcoming 5 million tourists from China in 2023, an increase of 1.5 times compared to 3.1 million in 2019 - the time before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

With a great advantage in terms of geographical location, being in the top of the large traditional markets favored by Chinese people, competitive prices..., Vietnam tourism is also looking forward to a big boost when it can officially welcome Chinese tourists from March 15. However, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietravel Corporation Nguyen Quoc Ky predicted that even if the implementation is the fastest, Vietnam will still need 45 - 60 days to truly exploit this market again. According to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, it is difficult for us to welcome a large flow of tourists like Thailand and Malaysia at the beginning of the year because at that time China had just opened, the compression of tourism demand was very large and they had "released" all to the countries that opened first. Vietnam reached an agreement with this market a bit slowly, so it missed the opportunity to "catch" a large number of tourists immediately like Thailand and Malaysia.

Commenting that passengers traveling by charter will "recover" faster and earlier than those traveling by commercial flights, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky noted that Vietnam's current problem is to prepare companies with enough capacity to receive and provide products and services to customers.

"Chartered travelers do not encounter many procedural barriers, but require the reception capacity of local units. The receiving destination, receiving partners, from coordination at airports to the immigration system, preventive medicine, hotel systems, restaurants..., everything needs to be oriented in advance so that units are ready to prepare, avoiding trampling on each other or turning into "zero-dollar tours". Thailand has done this very well, we can look to them, learn to reorganize the system to receive Chinese group guests in our country", Mr. Ky recommended.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh said that in the coming period, Chinese tourists coming to Vietnam will travel in groups, not as many as individual tourists as before the pandemic. This is an opportunity for Vietnam to restructure and rearrange the market to welcome high-end tourists, exploiting this market better and more thoroughly. Specifically, Chinese people are famous for spending a lot. They do not spare money on shopping, eating, playing, choosing high-end services and products, but when coming to Vietnam, they spend very little, they can stay for a whole week but do not spend much. The reason is that we do not have unique products, do not have high-standard shopping and entertainment areas to meet their needs. Moreover, it has been transformed into a "zero-dong tour" model, causing great damage to the tourism industry.

"This situation needs to be thoroughly resolved. From human resources, travel agencies, tour guides to the accommodation system, restaurants, commerce, etc., everything must be invested in and upgraded, coordinated well and sincerely so that Vietnamese tourism can exploit the huge market right next door in the long term and sustainably," said expert Nguyen Van Thanh.

No source can replace Chinese tourists for Khanh Hoa. Therefore, the information that China will allow tourists to travel to Vietnam from March 15, coinciding with the day the Prime Minister chaired the National Tourism Conference on tourism, has brought new vitality, opening up many expectations for recovery for the international market of Vietnam tourism.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh

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