Retaining international visitors with unique tourism products

Mr. NGUYEN QUY PHUONG , Head of Tourism Promotion Management Department, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism:

Mr. NGUYEN QUY PHUONG

Identify key markets

When determining tourism development, the issue is the effectiveness of tourism reflected in revenue, number of visitors and number of returning visitors. To attract visitors, what needs to be done is to identify key markets; from there, promote promotion, cooperation between central and local levels, between ministries and branches to strengthen communication, develop tourism products, and promote communication on social networks.

In my opinion, to develop tourism at this stage, we need to focus on total demand. Currently, international visitors are not only purely tourists but also many business visitors. Therefore, we need to develop more tourism products to stimulate tourists' spending needs.

Mr. LE TRUONG HIEN HOA , Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism:

Mr. LE TRUONG HIEN HOA

Focus on revenue contribution

In 2024, Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry aims to welcome about 6 million international visitors and 38 million domestic visitors with total revenue of about 190,000 billion VND, higher than the revenue in 2019. After the first 2 months of the year, Ho Chi Minh City has achieved 15% of the revenue target.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the city's tourism industry is focusing on revenue contributions, not too much on the number of visitors in the context of unstable international visitors. Recently, when Ho Chi Minh City implemented regional tourism, many people questioned whether Ho Chi Minh City was bringing visitors to the provinces. In fact, this activity helps promote domestic visitors, creating conditions for businesses to sell tours, bringing revenue to Ho Chi Minh City businesses. When implementing this plan, localities provided a lot of human resources support for Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr. NGUYEN HONG MINH , Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Tourism:

Mr. NGUYEN HONG MINH

Build many unique tourism products

In 2024, Hanoi's tourism industry will focus on developing new tourism products such as coordinating with event organizers and large music festivals associated with international tourism; developing waterway tourism routes along the Red River; reviving heritage destinations into unique tourist destinations; developing night tourism product groups, including researching and developing the F1 racing complex in Nam Tu Liem district into a high-class night tourism, sports and entertainment complex. Hanoi will organize a series of major events throughout the year, professionally organized with many new activities such as light shows and drone performances.

Ms. NGUYEN THI HOAI AN , Deputy Director of Da Nang City Department of Tourism:

Ms. NGUYEN THI HOAI AN

Locating the destination of "rich" guests

Da Nang will continue to promote communication through KOLs and celebrities. It is expected that in April, Da Nang will have an event with famous Brazilian football players, continuing the strategy of promoting celebrities as in the past... To meet this customer segment, Da Nang's tourism industry continues to improve, diversify, services, ensure the quality of human resources, friendliness, safety, hospitality... In addition to the super-rich, Da Nang also targets wedding products for Indian guests and international couples who want to hold weddings in Vietnam.

Mr. NGUYEN QUOC KY , Chairman of Vietravel Board of Directors:

Mr. NGUYEN QUOC KY

Building safe, clean, green destinations

One of the current limitations is the slow and unsynchronized change mechanism. For example, we have made many efforts on visa issues but they are not as flexible as other countries; tourism planning is still vague while in reality, it requires clarifying the planning issue for each market and each region, determining the target from now until 2030 of how many visitors to each market to have an action plan.

In addition, it is necessary to develop Vietnam into a safe, clean, green, synchronized, emission-reducing and environmentally friendly destination to attract tourists. It is necessary to build a "spoke region", thereby creating connections and re-planning tourism products of localities to support each other rather than compete with each other.

Ms. PHAN THI THUY DUNG , representative of Sun Group Corporation:

Ms. PHAN THI THUY DUNG

Need to improve the lack of flight routes

In Da Nang, Sun Group's Ba Na Hills Resort receives about 84% of international visitors; New World Resort in Phu Quoc receives about 85% of Korean visitors and some new markets such as Russia and Kazakhstan, but they have to transit before arriving in Phu Quoc. In fact, many international visitors to Vietnam still face visa and air barriers. Therefore, we expect visa policies to continue to be improved and further loosened so that Vietnam can increase its attraction to new international visitor markets. In addition, Vietnam needs solutions to improve the shortage of domestic and international flights and aircraft.

Mr. PHAM QUY HUY, Director of Kiwi Travel Company:

Mr. PHAM QUY HUY

Domestic travel prices are too high

Currently, domestic airfares are high, so tourists often compare them with destinations in the ASEAN region such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and choose to travel abroad more. While Vietnam attracts international tourists, Vietnamese tourists travel abroad more, which is a paradox and an obstacle in linking and developing long-term domestic tours. Therefore, it is necessary for airlines to have reasonable domestic airfares to compete with routes in the ASEAN region.

In addition to attracting visitors, we should rebuild the key seasonal tourism times of each region to better serve the needs of tourists. Travel companies also need to cooperate more to develop domestic tourism.

Mr. NGUYEN LE VINH LYNH, Director of Vietnam Scenic Viewing Joint Stock Company Branch in Ho Chi Minh City:

Mr. NGUYEN LE VINH LYNH

Double-decker bus attracts customers

Initially, we thought the double-decker bus model was for foreign visitors, but then the demand from domestic Vietnamese visitors also increased. Many visitors have experienced the double-decker bus many times, some up to 40 times. However, visitors also reported that they did not know where to stay at night in Vietnam, what to do, and whether there were any attractive night-time products. Therefore, it is necessary to continue promotional activities as well as develop more tourism products to serve visitors.

Human resource training also needs attention, especially the team of tour guides to meet the needs of tourists. With international visitors, there are currently many Korean visitors, many Indian visitors, we need to find solutions to exploit effectively. In the near future, we will continue to have new, more meticulous and better products; promote the connection between businesses to create unique and attractive products...

Ms. PHAM THANH GIANG, Head of Sales and Marketing - Marketing and Product Sales Department - Vietnam Airlines:

Ms. PHAM THANH GIANG

Customers will increase in the second half of the year

At Vietnam Airlines, international tourists to Vietnam are only 90% of that in 2019. Vietnam Airlines is preparing to open more flights to the Philippines in June and Munich - Germany in October, hoping to welcome new visitors. Vietnam Airlines is coordinating with large corporations to build attractive tourism packages, expecting a significant increase in international visitors to Vietnam in the second half of 2024. Hopefully, the National Tourism Administration will take the lead in promoting international tourism to create a common message, making Vietnam's image stronger.

Many difficult questions have been answered

According to journalist - Dr. To Dinh Tuan, Editor-in-Chief of Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper is one of the media agencies that has always accompanied the tourism industry for many years and will continue to accompany the tourism industry of Ho Chi Minh City and the whole country to develop tourism.

"This discussion is an opportunity for us to sit together to share and discuss many issues. Many opinions have answered the very difficult question that the discussion posed: how can the tourism industry make a breakthrough? I agree with the proposal that we must change our thinking, we must sell what tourists need, not what we have. We must understand the needs of tourists to meet them, attracting them to return to Vietnam many times. We need to identify the weaknesses and advantages of Vietnamese tourism compared to other countries to build a specific development strategy" - Mr. To Dinh Tuan emphasized.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/giu-chan-khach-bang-san-pham-khac-biet-196240312221610832.htm