The Northwest is blessed with majestic natural landscapes and diverse and rich cultural identities of more than 32 ethnic groups living in the region, but tourism has not yet developed commensurate with its advantages and potential. How to attract more and more tourists to the Northwest is an urgent issue for the entire tourism industry.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in 2015 the Northwest region welcomed 8.9 million tourists, of which 1.6 million were international visitors. Including visitors traveling between localities, the number was 13 million. Short-term stays (less than 1.5 days) only accounted for 5-7% of the total number of days/visitors in the country. In terms of nature, visitors to the Northwest are mainly domestic visitors with low spending.
The reason for the low number of visitors to the Northwest region is that the Northwest tourism product system is still monotonous and fragmented, not really attractive to investors. Currently, the whole region has 307 ranked accommodation establishments with nearly 9,000 rooms, including 3 4-star establishments, 13 3-star establishments, the remaining 94 2-star establishments and 197 1-star establishments (no 5-star establishments); the average capacity is approximately 60%. With 34 international travel companies, the tourism service system is still very rudimentary. The system of accommodation, resort, food and entertainment establishments is still lacking and low-class, most of which do not meet the requirements of service standards.
Overview of the workshop
Speaking at the workshop, Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Nguyen Van Tuan proposed 5 solutions to contribute to attracting tourists to the Northwest: Selecting and exploiting distinct advantages to create unique tourism products, thereby forming attractive and highly competitive intra-regional and inter-regional tourism routes; Investing in infrastructure, aiming at key, focal projects, large-scale; Strengthening advertising and promotion activities, creating tourism products suitable for many tourism market segments, developing E-marketing; Focusing on training tourism human resources, focusing on vocational skills training and homestay practice; Coordinating tourism activities between provinces in the Northwest region and between the Northwest and other localities so that tourism truly becomes a seamless activity, with higher competitiveness.
Mr. Tuan also affirmed that, in addition to focusing on improving the quality of infrastructure, tourism products, services and human resources, tourism development always needs to adhere to the principle of preserving indigenous culture and natural landscapes at tourist destinations.
At the workshop, many delegates, especially representatives of tourism businesses, commented on the current state of tourism development in the Northwest, thereby proposing many practical solutions to promote tourist attraction to the Northwest, specifically: selectively participating in domestic and foreign tourism activities and events; establishing a National Tourism Promotion Fund to further promote the image of the country and people of Vietnam in general and the Northwest in particular to international friends; having an open and transparent visa policy for key tourism markets; proposing to build new tourism products, strengthening the construction of inter-regional tours and routes to diversify tourism products; combining the system of transportation routes in a reasonable manner...
Representatives of tourism businesses said that localities need to base on planning to call for investment and have preferential mechanisms. Provinces invest in developing a system of high-quality technical facilities, suitable for the system of typical products of the Northwest and upgrade the capacity to provide diverse products and services.
Mr. Nguyen Hong Dai, General Director of APT Travel Company, said: “Localities have not really been proactive in cooperating with travel companies to bring tourists. Besides, tourism promotion activities are still limited, just for show, not for the right target. Localities need to organize conferences to meet with tourism businesses, listen to difficulties and obstacles to promptly resolve them, especially administrative procedures.”
Ms. Tran Thi Viet Huong, Director of Vietravel Marketing Department, is concerned about the current situation, in some destinations, room prices are being pushed up too high during the peak season. Therefore, any destination that has determined tourism planning and has an increasing number of visitors needs to increase investment in infrastructure, especially 2-3 star hotels. In addition, tourism businesses believe that localities need to promote communication on topics, cuisine, and people, such as the organization of the buckwheat flower festival in Ha Giang, the Ban flower festival in Dien Bien... which is really creating a driving force to attract visitors.
Also within the framework of the workshop, the Northwest Steering Committee, Vietnam Tourism Association and Vietnam Airlines signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation to attract tourists to the Northwest region, contributing to making the Northwest a prominent destination for Vietnamese tourism, as well as regional and international tourism.
PV
