Many customers come, why are businesses still "hungry"?
Speaking at the Seminar, Mr. Vo Viet Hoa - Director of International Tourism, Saigontourist Travel Service Company stated the current situation: The number of international visitors to Vietnam is growing strongly, the statistics are very good but travel agencies and tourism companies are still "hungry" for customers. This requires tourism management agencies to carefully study the number of international visitors coming to Vietnam, how many are pure tourists, how many types of visitors can bring revenue to tourism businesses.
Analyzing the reality of Vietnam's three traditional markets in the North Asia region, Mr. Vo Viet Hoa pointed out: In recent times, the number of Korean tourists to Vietnam has grown very strongly, however, Vietnamese travel companies find it very difficult to "enter" this market, unable to provide full-package services and at most can only provide small, "skeleton" services. Therefore, profits mainly flow to their countries from foreign units, and Vietnamese tourism does not benefit.
Regarding Japanese tourists, the market to Vietnam has not increased much because the Japanese are currently tightening their spending. At the same time, Vietnam is not considered an attractive destination for Japanese tourists. They will prioritize going to Thailand, Korea, Singapore, Australia and European countries. However, flights from Japan to cities in Vietnam are always crowded. This shows that it is possible that mainly Japanese businessmen come to Vietnam to work, the number of tourists is not large.
As for the Chinese market - Vietnam's largest customer base before the pandemic - Saigontourist Travel mainly exploits mid-range, high-end and cruise tourists. After 2 years of waiting, this market did not explode as expected. It was not until this year when China had a policy of loosening control and encouraging people to travel that there was hope for better development. However, data from the world shows that Chinese tourists no longer consider Southeast Asia a favorite market as before.
"Northeast Asia is the most favorable market for Vietnamese tourism but currently there are many challenges. In that context, to expand the source of visitors and for tourism to quickly break through, we need stronger policies. Specifically, visa policies need to be more attractive. Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore have already exempted visas for China. Tourism businesses hope that tourism leaders will continue to influence the Government to exempt visas for key markets. Along with that, invest funds in strong promotional activities, participate in major tourism events in the world and establish tourism promotion offices in European countries, the US, ASEAN countries... to go directly to businesses, press agencies, directly introduce to local consumers, attract tourists to Vietnam" - Mr. Vo Viet Hoa proposed.
The highest cost for tourists is airfare.
Sharing with the press on the sidelines, Ms. Ngo Huong - Deputy General Director of Sales and Marketing of Vinpearl Joint Stock Company said: In the period of late 2023 - early 2024, Vietnam tourism has not recovered at the expected level but still has growth steps. However, the tourism industry still faces great difficulties when the cost of air travel is too high compared to the market; has not created a resonance to stimulate demand. Next is the fact that the promotion and communication of Vietnam's destinations have not been promoted and implemented strongly and synchronously.
"Currently, the highest proportion of tourists' expenses when coming to Vietnam is for airfare and transportation between destinations. This makes tourists immediately switch to neighboring destinations in the region, with similar climates and cultures but more attractive promotions and much more reasonable costs. Domestic tourism localities also find it difficult to promote services or connecting tours when travel costs increase," said Ms. Huong, adding that in order to have an effective and practical "handshake" between tourism - travel - aviation, there needs to be a conductor to preside over and propose a clear national tourism stimulus action program with specific roles for each party, from businesses to ministries, management agencies, localities... "When there is a specific strategy, balancing costs - profits and sustainable growth on a national scale, tourism stimulus will have new steps forward. Thus, Vietnam will transform strongly, improving its position in all aspects on the world destination map world"- Ms. Huong emphasized
To compete with attractive destinations in the region; to become a "must-visit" destination for international tourists, Ms. Huong proposed: It is necessary to develop a national strategy to stimulate tourism; focus on realizing the core and most urgent action strategies today. That is to create a reasonable fare policy corridor for domestic and international tourists - competing directly with destinations such as Thailand, Korea, Japan, etc.; The Department of Tourism, Ministry of Culture and Communications presides over and launches a series of activities to promote synchronous and attractive destinations in localities with tourism strengths and focus on the key international tourist market; Continue to promote and facilitate the development of new, world-class products at "must-visit destinations in Vietnam".
Outdated policies make it difficult for tourism to break through
Also asking why there are so many tourists going to Thailand, returning 4-5 times while the number of tourists returning to Vietnam is very low, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietravel, identified the key reason as the slow and inconsistent policy mechanisms for the tourism industry.
Specifically, we talk a lot about visas, but in other countries, visa policies change very quickly, flexibly, and serve the needs of visitors. There are many attempts to change visa policies today, but they are not as flexible and are still slower than other countries. The planning issue is also quite vague, while in reality, without planning, it is impossible to make a plan. Thailand clearly defines how many visitors they want in which market, and what they will do to achieve that goal. If the planning issue for each market and each region is not clarified, the investment will be very scattered and costly.
On the other hand, environmental issues and tourism products are also very important. We do not have a "spoke" planning, from which to create connections and re-plan local tourism products to support each other, not compete with each other. The limitation of connecting tourism to create products lies in the lack of deep and loose connections.
"In short, identifying tourism as a key tourism industry requires synchronous policies, incentives, and strong investment in policies for the tourism industry," Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky raised the issue.
In response to businesses' expectations for more open policies for tourism, Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh said that these are issues that have been talked about a lot for a long time, but there has not been much change.
According to Mr. Binh, in 2023, Vietnam will welcome more than 12 million international visitors, exceeding the target of 8 million visitors; in 2024, despite difficulties, it is possible to welcome more than 20 million international visitors. These are impressive achievements, but compared to the potential and demand of the tourism industry, the number is still quite low. To attract visitors, there must be suitable products. To do so, there must be appropriate policies, while for a long time, policy implementation has been very slow and difficult, causing many difficulties for the tourism industry.
"Businesses expect to open visa policies, but to have a new policy issued, the tourism industry has had to wait more than 10 years. If we want to open more, we will probably have to wait another 10 years. Obviously, if we are behind in policy, we will always be behind. Therefore, I think that current units and businesses need to take full advantage of what we have, exploit the highest level of cooperation to create good products, and expand the source of visitors to Vietnam" - Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh said.
Source link
Comment (0)