HANOI: Tourism officials in Vietnam are calling for more upscale hotels and better international marketing to revive the pace of tourism growth.
A tourism industry summit last week heard that overall tourism growth in Vietnam slowed in 2006.
Vu The Binh, a director in the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said, “Traditional markets such as Canada, Germany, China, France and Australia have reached stable annual growth rates of between 10% and 15%.
“The number of visitors from new markets including South Korea, the US and Japan has increased sharply with average growth rates of between 13% and 29%,” he added. But across the board visitor growth had stalled.
In 2005, the industry received 3.47 million foreign tourists, registering a year-on-year increase of 20.1%. But in 2006, the growth rate in the number of foreign visitors lifted just three per cent over the 2005 figure, Binh said.
The chief reasons behind the slower growth, he said, were insufficient infrastructure, poor promotional efforts, and lack of quality hotel rooms, restaurants and entertainment.
“ASEAN-member countries account for only 14% of the total. But in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, that rate is 60-80%,” he said.
“We have not yet paid attention to market research and our overseas tourism promotion activities are still weak, especially in major markets,” Binh said.
Other limitations include poor roads and transport vehicles, particularly in provinces; inexperienced tour guides, and complicated administrative procedures.
Other steps suggested by the tourism summit included the simplification of exit and entry procedures, better relations with international tourism companies, and construction of more international standard hotels.
