Reporter: The World Tourism Organization considers tourism an important industry that not only creates jobs for women but also helps promote their advancement. What about tourism industry in Vietnam?

Mr Anh: Women make up the majority of the Vietnamese tourism sector’s workforce. As many as 136,000 women are working directly for tourism, accounting for 58 percent of its direct workforce. Female workers concentrate in areas such as hotels, restaurants, tourism agents, and information and entertainment services.  The female proportion in hotels and restaurants is more than 71 percent, and in beauty salons more than 95 percent.

Women are also increasingly promoted to leadership positions. Up to 27,000 women are now enterprise managers or officials in state agencies from across the tourism industry. They make up 11 percent of the sector’s total workforce.

Most of tourist labourers are women aged 25-35, which presents a great advantage for the sector’s development. In addition, they have high vocational skills and their working efficiency has played a decisive role in assuring the quality and competitiveness of tourism services.

Reporter: The World Tourism Organization has launched a campaign and a photo competition to raise community awareness about huge opportunities offered by tourism to women. What has the tourism sector done so far in response to this?

Mr Anh: Vietnam’s tourism industry has recognized the importance of the female workforce, and

The board has organised a number of activities such as an emulation movement, a contest to learn about on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the National Strategy for the Advancement of Vietnamese Women until 2010, and visits to exchange experiences. These activities have created a motive for women working in the tourism sector to excel in their roles.

This year, many seminars with themes such as “Tourism with poverty reduction” and “Community Tourism Development” have been held in provinces of Dien Bien, Dak Lak, Ninh Thuan, and Tra Vinh with the aim of improving the communities’ awareness of tourism development. This is one of the important measures to eliminate poverty and generate jobs for women.

The sector’s activities respond to the World Tourism Day themed “Tourism opens doors for women”.

Reporter: To create more opportunities for the poor, especially poor women, the tourism sector should be further promoted. In recent years, despite its high growth, the sector’s development has not matched with potential. For example, beaches in the central region are evaluated as the most beautiful in the country but it is the most disadvantaged region. What will the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism plan to do to boost the development of the tourism sector?

Mr Anh: The sector will soon implement the following work: improving the quality of human resources and services, diversifying high-quality tourism products, improving awareness of natural and cultural environment protection and promoting Vietnamese tourism both at home and abroad. The tourism sector will actively coordinate with local authorities to encourage people to protect natural landscape and promote tourism culture. It will also coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to ensure social security to attract visitors and promote images of Vietnamese people and land. The sector will build a proper roadmap to develop it into a key economic sector.

Reporter: Thank you very much!