Vietnam's tourism industry has made remarkable progress in recent times, with its ranking increasing from 75/141 countries in 2016 to 63/140 countries in 2019. Price competitiveness increased by 13 points. Aviation ranking increased by 11 points compared to 2017. In November 2019 alone, Vietnam welcomed 1.8 million international visitors, an increase of 39% over the same period in 2018, double that of 2016. It is expected that in 2019, Vietnam tourism will welcome 18 million international visitors.
Those are the positive figures given by Mr. Le Quang Tung, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in his opening speech at the plenary session of the Vietnam Tourism Summit held on the afternoon of December 9.
Mr. Le Quang Tung - Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism delivered the opening speech at the plenary session.
However, he admitted that many challenges still exist, such as the competitiveness of Vietnamese tourism still having many low indicators.
The plenary session discussed and made proposals and recommendations to reorganize tourism activities through two main topics: Solutions "For a beautiful, peace-loving, culturally unique Vietnam in the hearts of tourists" and "What does Vietnam do to develop aviation and give wings to tourism?"
In topic 1, there were many opinions from experts about the immediate limitations that need to be resolved. In particular, Vietnam's environmental sustainability index and tourism infrastructure are ranked among the lowest in the world, which is something that needs to be overcome. Many limitations and bottlenecks have not been resolved such as poor promotion work, tourism development support funds not yet put into operation, overloaded airport infrastructure that cannot meet the increasing number of tourists, and limited entry visa policies...
Many delegates at the Forum also raised concerns about the modest budget for promoting Vietnamese tourism, which is only 2 million USD per year. To solve this problem, many business organizations said they are willing to join the proposal to open a 60 billion VND fund to contribute to promoting Vietnamese tourism.
In topic 2, a key issue raised by the Tourism Summit is overloaded aviation infrastructure. According to Mr. Luong Hoai Nam - an aviation expert, overloaded infrastructure is natural because Vietnam has 22 airports, but the total capacity is only equal to Changi Airport (Singapore), Suvarnabhumi Airport (Bangkok, Thailand), Kuala Lumpur International Airport (Malaysia)... Meanwhile, overloaded aviation infrastructure greatly affects the tourism industry, because 80% of tourists come to Vietnam by air.
More socialization is needed to involve the private sector in developing tourism infrastructure.
To solve this problem, from the private perspective, Mr. Chu Viet Cuong - member of the Board of Directors of Vietjet suggested that it is necessary to socialize more strongly so that the private sector can participate in developing and mobilizing capital for infrastructure. According to him, many countries such as Australia, the UK, the US... allow the private sector to participate in building aviation infrastructure and some airports in Australia and Thailand are managed and operated by the private sector, so the quality is very good. Calling for private sector investment is necessary, but the policy is still flawed and has not created motivation for businesses to participate in investment.
The visa issue also attracted the attention of many other international guests. Mr. Kenneth Atkinson - Vice President of the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) commented that although Vietnam is the top country in Southeast Asia, the number of visitors returning to Vietnam is relatively low. This rate for Thailand is 70%. To improve the return rate of visitors, according to him, Vietnam must improve service quality, make more positive changes in visa extension and exemption issues, cooperate with airlines, open direct flights to Europe, improve transit capacity...
British Ambassador Gareth Warth proposed solutions to develop Vietnam tourism.
Yesterday afternoon's plenary session also saw the signing of memorandums of understanding and cooperation agreements between the parties to develop products, services, improve infrastructure, and promote destinations. Notably, the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and the Tourism Advisory Council on the establishment and operation of two Vietnam tourism promotion offices in the UK and Australia.
More information
The 2nd Vietnam Tourism Summit 2019 was organized by the Prime Minister's Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform in coordination with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) and the Vietnam Tourism Association. This is an annual high-level event within the framework of the Vietnam Private Economic Forum (ViEF) - the largest public-private dialogue forum between the Government, businesses and the private sector.
