Philippines unexpectedly takes the 'top spot'.

Did you buy a lot because you found it "unusual"?

According to the 2022 Statistical Yearbook of the General Statistics Office, the average spending per Filipino tourist visiting Vietnam was US$2,257.8, leading the top 10 international tourist markets with the highest spending in 2019. Compared to the average spending per international tourist visiting Vietnam (US$1,151.7), Filipino tourists spent twice as much. This is quite surprising because even during the golden age of Vietnamese tourism before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippines was never considered a potential market due to its relatively modest number of visitors.

Tourists coming to Vietnam mostly just eat and then go home to sleep; they don't have places to spend money or shop.

Of the 13 million international tourists who visited Vietnam in 2017, only 133,543 were from the Philippines. In the first eight months of 2018, while the number of Filipino tourists to Vietnam increased by 12% year-on-year to 96,893, it remains very small compared to the overall number of ASEAN tourists visiting Vietnam, as well as the number of Filipinos traveling abroad. Notably, Vietnam was absent from the list of the top 10 destinations for Filipino tourists (including both number of visitors and spending) published by the Philippines' Ministry of Tourism in 2019. Before the pandemic, Filipinos spent over $8.2 billion on overseas travel, comparable to Vietnamese people, but the countries that benefited most were South Korea (receiving nearly 2 million Filipino tourists). Japan ranked second among destinations where Filipinos spent the most, with 682,788 visitors from the island nation. The US ranked third with 611,791 visitors.

Thus, while Vietnam's largest markets—China, South Korea, and Thailand—are at the bottom of the spending rankings, the Philippines, a market that is almost "unrelated," is leading.

The results were quite surprising because, having followed the tourism industry for decades, Associate Professor Pham Trung Luong, former Deputy Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research, observed that, on average internationally, the US and Nordic countries are the largest spenders. The Philippine market is still relatively new to Vietnam. Therefore, the survey and statistical work needs to be reviewed first. This activity in the tourism industry has had many problems, potentially leading to inaccurate results. Statistics must follow a long series with a sufficiently large representative sample to be reliable. If only a few points in time or a relatively small scope are considered, the data may not be accurate. However, Mr. Pham Trung Luong also did not rule out the possibility that because Vietnam is a new destination for the Philippines, everything seems new, strange, and appealing, leading them to spend more on shopping and dining. Meanwhile, larger, traditional markets are already too familiar, so there are no longer many things that attract them to spend money.

From a different perspective, Mr. TH, the director of a travel company in Ho Chi Minh City, affirmed that the Philippines is a potential new tourist market that Vietnam should pay attention to exploiting. "We organized a tourism promotion trip to the Philippines more than a month ago, and they were very enthusiastic when they saw Vietnam's tourism resources. It's true that they used to travel a lot to the US and Korea, but now they're starting to get to know Vietnam. In the Philippines, the cost of living is very high, so when they come to Vietnam, they see many new and inexpensive things, and they like them. Filipinos are willing to spend a lot of money on Vietnamese food and souvenirs. The statistics are based on average per capita spending, so I believe those figures are accurate," Mr. TH said.

The "key" is the product and the connection.

Looking back at the spending statistics of tourists visiting Vietnam, Associate Professor Pham Trung Luong sighed regretfully at the declining trend in shopping spending. This is a huge waste because shopping is one of the needs of tourists, especially women. According to him, the question of how to "extract money" from tourists has been raised for more than a decade, especially since 2016, when the number of tourists to Vietnam increased dramatically, but sadly, while the answer exists, no organization has actually started to implement it.

Specifically, experts and businesses in the industry have repeatedly affirmed that Vietnam needs integrated shopping complexes with diverse goods and services, entertainment complexes such as casinos and duty-free shopping areas, and convenient tax refund policies for tourists... but to date, there is still no legal framework for all of these products. Chinese tourists like gambling, so they need casinos, but Vietnam doesn't have them; Thai and Korean tourists like to buy luxury goods, so they need duty-free zones and factory outlets, which Vietnam also lacks... The products are monotonous and don't suit the market's taste, so Vietnam remains stagnant as a low-spending market.

In the chain of sustainable tourism development, travel companies are a crucial link, but currently they are not benefiting despite the large number of tourists. Then, tour prices are high, tourists complain, and travel companies have to cut costs or "demand" discounts from airlines and hotels. In this way, the entire tourism ecosystem will eventually "sink."

A travel expert

"Tourism products must remain the top priority. Without good products, no matter how many visitors there are, they won't want to come, and even if they do, they won't spend. New markets spend a lot because of novelty, but after one or two visits without anything new, they will close their wallets again. A large number of visitors with low spending has significant negative consequences, wasting tourism resources while local people don't benefit. The ripple effect of tourism on economic growth will no longer be effective," warned Associate Professor Pham Trung Luong.

Recounting the poignant exaggeration often passed around among tourism company leaders, "If tourists bring $5,000 to Vietnam, they'll only have $4,999 left," a tourism expert lamented: "Vietnamese people rush to exchange money, swipe their cards, buy large suitcases, and pack small boxes to carry their purchases home, essentially 'donating' money to other countries; yet tourists in Vietnam have nowhere to spend their money. This is a real pain point for the tourism industry, and if not addressed quickly, the consequences will be enormous." According to this expert, it's not only crucial to immediately fill the gap in shopping tourism with entertainment complexes that operate day and night, like Marina Bay and Sentosa in Singapore or Las Vegas in the US, but the tourism industry also needs to build a professional collaborative model to encourage tourists to willingly spend their last remaining money.

For example, Thailand can reduce tour prices to as low as $500 per person thanks to close collaboration between policy-making agencies and travel agencies, restaurants, hotels, etc. Airlines partner with travel agencies to lower airfares and take tourists to duty-free shopping centers and entertainment complexes. For each tour group, the duty-free shop operator compensates the travel agency with a commission (approximately 10%). South Korea and Japan are also implementing this model very successfully. Tour programs to Korea, Japan, Thailand, etc., even to small provinces, will include visits to shopping centers and duty-free shops. Travel companies are enthusiastic about bringing Vietnamese tourists because the tourists genuinely want to shop, and the companies benefit from the commission. In contrast, Vietnam lacks large shopping and entertainment centers, and places to take tourists to spend money, so travel companies are not keen on attracting international tourists.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/philippines-bat-ngo-chiem-ngoi-vuong-185230728235800668.htm