Waiting for the billion dollar "pie"
In 2019, Chinese tourists spent about $260 billion, far exceeding many other markets. When the pandemic hit, China implemented a "zero-COVID" policy.
China’s recent “zero-COVID” era is expected to benefit the global economy and “save” the tourism industry in many places. However, China is currently only piloting group tours to 20 countries, not including Vietnam.
According to experts, not only for Vietnam but for all tourism markets in the world, China is an irreplaceable source of tourists.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recently sent a document requesting China to soon include Vietnam in the list of pilot countries to welcome Chinese tourists in groups.
Dr. Luong Hoai Nam - member of the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) - said that this is a timely move from the management agency. According to the expert, not only for Vietnam but for all tourism markets in the world, China is a source of tourists that is difficult to replace.
Mr. Nam cited that in 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic), Vietnam welcomed 5.6 million Chinese tourists, accounting for 1/3 of the total number of international tourists to Vietnam. These visitors brought in more than 5 billion USD in revenue for Vietnamese tourism businesses, not including revenue from air tickets, airport fees, and sales to Chinese tourists.
The expert also converted tourism revenue from the Chinese market to more than half of Vietnam's agricultural exports to China. Meanwhile, due to the pandemic, Vietnam lost billions of dollars in tourism revenue from this market.
“If the number of international tourists cannot increase rapidly to reach and exceed the pre-Covid pandemic level, not only will tourism businesses be stuck and exhausted, but real estate businesses that have invested too much in resorts will also be in even more trouble,” Mr. Nam worries.
How to fill the gap?
Sharing with Tien Phong, Mr. Phan Tri - Director of a travel company in Hanoi - said that in the current difficult context, guests from any market are "valuable". Although the main tourists of his company are the European and American markets, the fact that Chinese guests have not yet arrived has made some tourist destinations somewhat "sparse", lacking in excitement, affecting the psychology and spending of other groups of guests and the general market. In fact, in many places, only when there are Chinese guests, a series of large and small hotels have to renovate to welcome "regular guests".
“The more tourism there is, the more services will develop, and the better demand will be stimulated,” Mr. Tri shared, commenting that the absence of Chinese tourists has somewhat affected the target of welcoming 8 million international visitors that our country set for this year.
From the perspective of a long-time tourism worker, Mr. Tri believes that as long as China has not opened its doors, businesses cannot just wait for the fruit to fall into their mouths and need to step up their efforts to find other sources of customers. He said that there are quite flexible businesses that quickly switched to welcoming Indian customers and were successful with this change.
“Of course, the transition is not easy, but many parties can still do it,” Mr. Tri said. According to him, in reality, many businesses are still waiting, because there are types of services that only serve Chinese customers.
Mr. Nguyen Van Tuong - Director of a tourism business in Ha Long, Quang Ninh - also shared the difficulties when mentioning which source to replace Chinese tourists for Vietnamese tourism. Currently, European and American tourists have also reduced their spending on tourism a lot in the context of tightening spending. Not to mention, Vietnam has many barriers in competing for tourism with some countries in the region such as Thailand, Singapore... Although Thailand may not be as good as Vietnam as a destination, according to this businessman, many tourists can come to Thailand 10 times a year, but how many times can they come to Vietnam?
Many businesses believe that, in the context of the absence of Chinese tourists and the decline of the European and Russian markets, there is no other way. Vietnam needs to have more suitable micro-policies, and at the same time, management agencies and associations need to organize stronger promotions and advertising to many other markets...
