HANOI – Authorities in Vietnam are becoming increasingly worried by the slow recovery of the country’s tourism industry.
While the number of tourists to neighbouring countries shows signs of a recovery, Vietnam’s international visitor figures are decreasing.
In September, 294,000 foreign tourists arrived in Vietnam, a decrease of 6.4 percent over August. The number of tourists in the first nine months of the year decreased by 16 percent over the same period of 2008, a more difficult year than 2009.
According to VietnamNet, travel firms say that big discounts on tours offered by Vietnam Airlines are not powerful enough to lure more travellers.
The Vietnam National Tourism Administration (VNAT) believes that the problem lies in the way tourism promotion campaigns are carried out.
Dr Do Cam Tho from the Tourism Development Research Institute, told VietnamNet that many localities in Vietnam organise cultural festivals, but none have special characteristics to lure tourists.
Tran Truong Kien, chairman of Thien Minh Travel, said at a recent workshop on Vietnam’s tourism prospects that Vietnam expects to receive six million foreign travellers by 2010, but it may have to settle for four million.
Thibault Paquin, Asian Development director of the Accor Group, said plans for receiving six million foreign travellers by 2010 would be fulfilled only if Vietnam carried out a series of measures, such as building more 3-4 star hotels in secondary cities, putting more international airports into operation and developing more strands of tourism.
