Vietnam tourism can surpass the peak

The target of 17 - 18 million customers is within reach.

Newly released figures from the General Statistics Office show that after 9 months since the beginning of the year, international visitors to Vietnam reached 12.7 million, up 43% over the same period last year. Of which, visitors arriving by air reached nearly 10.8 million, accounting for 84.9% of international visitors, up 38.7%. Visitors by road reached nearly 1.8 million, accounting for 13.8%, up 68.1%.

In August, Vietnam welcomed 1.433 million visitors, bringing the total number of foreign visitors 17% higher than the golden period before the pandemic, reaching 11.4 million visitors compared to more than 11.3 million international visitors after 8 months of 2019. However, it should be noted that while September is the peak period, the number of international visitors was only 1.27 million, a decrease of about 300,000 visitors compared to the same period in 2019. This caused the total number of international visitors to Vietnam after 9 months of 2024 to be about 100,000 visitors lower than the peak in 2019.

Indian tourists experience boating on Sao Khe River in Trang An Tourist Area

With only 3 months left to accelerate to about 5 million visitors, concerns are growing that the tourism industry may not reach its target this year. The concern is growing as China, the key market before the pandemic, is still far from a full recovery. By the end of 2019, Vietnam welcomed 5.8 million Chinese visitors, accounting for 1/3 of the total number of international tourists. Since the beginning of the year, after many efforts, China has become the second largest international tourist market for Vietnam tourism (after South Korea). However, by the end of August, Vietnam had only welcomed nearly 2.45 million Chinese visitors, only 72.6% compared to the same period in 2019.

Regarding this issue, a representative of the National Tourism Administration said that although Vietnam's largest market before the pandemic, Chinese tourists, has not fully recovered, the growth rate from July to now is quite positive. In return, we have exploited many other markets quite well such as Korea, Japan, European tourist markets such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark... and especially the Indian market.

Recently, Vietnam successfully welcomed a group of 4,500 Indian tourists, contributing greatly to tourism growth in the month. According to statistics from the National Tourism Administration, in 8 months, the number of Indian visitors increased by 263% compared to the same period in 2023, reaching 312,000 arrivals, bringing this emerging market of a billion people to 8th place in the 10 most crowded international tourist markets to Vietnam.

International tourists on the Silver Spirit cruise ship docked at Tien Sa port, Son Tra district, Da Nang city

To welcome the number of Indian tourists expected to grow rapidly in the coming time, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the National Tourism Administration have developed a strategy to promote tourism with the world's most populous market. Specifically, events have been organized such as: Vietnam Day in India, tourism promotion forum between the two countries, tourism introduction programs at international fairs, etc.

In addition to Vietnamese airlines opening more direct flights to major cities in India, the National Tourism Administration also coordinates with relevant units to develop suitable tourism products based on careful research on consumer behavior and preferences of Indians. These are high-end, specific tourism products to meet the needs of high-spending customers from India. In particular, this October, the Administration will coordinate with travel agencies and localities with attractive destinations to organize a large-scale program to promote Vietnamese tourism in India.

“In addition, the fourth quarter is the golden time for Vietnam’s tourist destinations to attract international visitors from the US and Europe when these countries enter the winter vacation season. Therefore, the number of 17-18 million tourists in 2024 is still a feasible target,” said a representative of the National Tourism Administration.

Change promotion formula

Director General of the General Statistics Office Nguyen Thi Huong assessed that the positive recovery of the tourism industry in recent times mainly comes from favorable visa policies, enhanced tourism promotion programs, along with prestigious tourism awards presented by international organizations, which have attracted an increasing number of international visitors to Vietnam.

Recently, along with promoting communication and promotion campaigns on digital platforms, our country's tourism industry has also proactively participated in many large international tourism events and fairs, contributing to boosting the number of international visitors to Vietnam. However, it cannot be denied that tourism promotion and advertising still has many bottlenecks, especially when the budget is only about 2 million USD/year, much lower than the investment level of more than 100 million USD/year of countries in the region such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc.

Meanwhile, the mechanism for disbursing funds from the Tourism Development Support Fund has not been cleared; the tourism industry does not have an on-site promotion force through overseas promotion offices... This situation requires Vietnamese tourism to have new and creative methods and approaches in promotion to meet the requirements of competition and keep up with the rapid changes in the market and technology.

Mr. Cao Tri Dung, Chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association, commented: In the context of limited national promotion and advertising campaigns, localities have been very proactive in approaching the market, organizing many direct promotion programs to attract the right number of visitors. For example, this year, Da Nang is expected to welcome 9.8 million visitors, with international visitors reaching more than 4 million people. Placing expectations on traditional large markets such as Korea, China, Japan, Southeast Asian markets, India, and Europe, from the beginning of the year, the Da Nang tourism business community has always accompanied state agencies to implement a series of programs and policies to develop new products as well as stimulate demand and invest in depth in promotion activities in these markets. In the remaining 3 months of the year, Da Nang will continue to have very in-depth promotion programs in markets with the ability to recover quickly such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

SOURCE: NATIONAL TOURISM OFFICE

“We will organize the Da Nang City Tourism Festival from October 17 to 20. This is an event that connects more than 200 domestic and foreign travel partners as well as more than 500 service teams nationwide to Da Nang. In particular, Da Nang tourism businesses regularly promote in-depth on platforms targeting the direct customer system. When customers have fundamentally changed their trends, switching to self-study, searching for information and booking services directly at the destination, Da Nang has caught up very quickly in changing the form of approaching customers. From approaching customers through the intermediary system, still maintaining the form of in-depth, but now we have expanded the form of promotion directly to the end customer. With the convenience of destination information as well as the attractiveness and high competitiveness in searching for information and implementing direct service booking, we believe that customers will always return to Da Nang,” Mr. Cao Tri Dung added.

Agreeing, Mr. Nguyen Huu Y Yen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saigontourist Travel Company, emphasized that with the drastic change in travel behavior after the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism industry must diversify its methods and make a variety of programs. Travel companies proactively contact old partners directly, participate in international fairs, promotion programs, organize promotional seminars, and combine with many units... At the same time, regularly update information on service and product pricing policies directly to partners to get the best products for customers. Mr. Yen also noted that the trend of individual customers is currently increasing sharply. While providing services to individual customers is often through OTA (online travel connection platforms such as Booking, Agoda, Traveloka...) but the cost is very high, about 30 - 40%. Therefore, restaurant, hotel, accommodation services... must have promotional tools on many social networking platforms so that individual customers can book directly with their units (B2C).

“The National Tourism Administration already has many films, clips, and images promoting tourism. Service units can download them from the database, attach their logos, and then simultaneously promote the image of Vietnam's destinations. Thousands and tens of thousands of units using the same database and working together to promote will have a very good spread. It is necessary to diversify communication and promotion methods, we cannot just rely on traditional methods like before,” Mr. Yen suggested.

Still waiting for a breakthrough

Although the goal of recovering to the golden age of 2019 of Vietnamese tourism is showing many positive signs, the gap with "competitors" such as Thailand, Malaysia... is still quite far.

Specifically, if the target is achieved, by the end of this year, Thailand will welcome nearly 37 million international visitors, bringing in revenue of up to 95.5 billion USD. Malaysia has also made a spectacular breakthrough when it became the most visited destination in Southeast Asia in 2023 and this year strives to welcome 27.3 million foreign visitors. However, the race is still taking place dramatically when at the end of the first half of 2024, Thailand regained its leading position thanks to visa relaxation policies, bilateral visa exemption with China and many other tourism promotion activities. Vietnam, thanks to the effective new visa policy, has also surpassed Singapore to rise to the third position in the countries welcoming the most international visitors in the region in the early stages of this year. Experts and tourism businesses believe that while the race is witnessing many fluctuations, Vietnam needs to take advantage of the opportunity to accelerate and break through.

In fact, this is also the reason why the Vietnam Tourism Association confidently set a target of welcoming 20 million international visitors for the whole year of 2024, higher than the target of 18 million set by the tourism industry. Chairman of the Association Vu The Binh explained: This bold number is based on the openness of visa policies and the determination of tourism businesses. Most importantly, compared to the potential and demand of the tourism industry, the number of 18 million international visitors is still quite low. Therefore, businesses are all making great efforts to accelerate the breakthrough faster and stronger.

To do so, according to Mr. Vu The Binh, businesses really hope that the government will have more open and innovative policies. Looking around, visa policies of other countries change very quickly, flexibly, and serve the needs of customers. We have tried hard but are not as flexible as other countries. Policies to support tourism businesses in accessing credit capital to invest in upgrading and renewing product and service systems or reducing cost burdens are still very "weak", almost inaccessible...

“If we want tourism to make a breakthrough and rise above the rest, it requires real investment and real attention from policy. However, we have also determined that for a long time, the implementation of our policies has been very slow and difficult. Therefore, units and businesses now need to take full advantage of what we have, exploit the highest level of connection to create good products, and expand the source of visitors to Vietnam. In particular, focusing on transforming green tourism, digital tourism, creating products that meet customer requirements as well as the sustainable tourism trend that the whole world is aiming for. Having good tourism products that hit the right needs will attract a variety of visitors and keep them staying longer, spending more,” said Mr. Vu The Binh.

Domestic and foreign tourist markets are in opposite directions.

Vietnam Airports Corporation - JSC informed: In the first 8 months of 2024, airports welcomed more than 75.8 million passengers, including nearly 27.5 million international passengers - an impressive number with an increase of 32.4% over the same period last year. In contrast, the domestic market witnessed a decrease of 17.3%, reaching more than 48.3 million passengers. This contrasting picture is also reflected in flight data. While international flights skyrocketed by 22%, reaching 170,362, domestic flights decreased by 19.5%, reaching only 289,772. The total number of flights in the past 8 months was 460,135, down slightly by 7.9% compared to the same period in 2023.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/du-lich-viet-nam-co-the-vuot-dinh-185241006220222066.htm