Attracting more foreign visitors to Vietnam

Tourists are inherently accompanied by large volumes of foreign currencies (over US$5.6 billion in 2011 or 63.3 percent of Vietnam’s total service exports), which contribute to improving the balance of international payments, increasing foreign currency reserves, and stabilising exchange rates.

Tourism is also an effective and direct way to introduce the country’s history, landscape, and people, as well as its socio-economic development, open mechanisms and simplified administrative procedures, to international friends.

The Vietnam Administration of Tourism’s (VNAT) statistics reveal that in the past ten months, the number of tourists visiting Vietnam who travel by air accounted for 83.5 percent of total arrivals, followed distantly by those passing across land borders (15.3 percent).

The Republic of Korea saw the sharpest increase in the number of visitors to Vietnam (35 percent), followed by Malaysia (24.6 percent), Japan (23 percent), Thailand (22.9 percent), and Taiwan (18.1 percent).

The number of tourists from China, Cambodia, and Australia conversely fell slightly compared to the same period last year.

The ever-increasing average spending rates of foreign visitors mean their custom is likely to contribute over US$6.5billion to Vietnam’s total tourism earnings.

However, the ratio of foreign tourists to the local Vietnamese population is estimated at only 7 percent, much lower than in other countries in the region and the world.

Vietnam has recently made efforts to upgrade tourist infrastructure, improve the quality of tourism services, and bolster the sector’s human resources. But the country must focus on enhancing its competitive edge through programs and strategies like the National Tourism Development Strategy until 2020, with a vision to 2030, which was approved by the Prime Minister in 2011.

Vietnam should also pursue policies that could mobilise investment resources from both domestic and foreign businesses and the community in general.

Ensuring transparency, ease of use, and favourable conditions for visa issuance,  as well as opening of air routes linking Vietnam and promising emerging markets, are two other effective methods of attracting more foreign tourists to the country.

In addition to boosting the scope of the tourism marketing campaigns, improving the natural and social environments is also necessary for the sector to develop.