Effects on Vietnam’s economy: Hospitality and tourism
Tourism which plays an important part in the economy of Vietnam creates lots of jobs and export value. Nevertheless, there are still many difficulties that Vietnam has to overcome in order to make our dream becoming one of countries which is famous for tourism come true.
Vietnam is one of members of Southeast Asia, which has a lot of exciting economic activities in general and tourism in particular. Vietnam has a lot of advantages to develop tourism. Therefore, to make Vietnam an ideal tourism destination, our country should have specific strategies for this goal.
First, one strategy for Vietnam tourism development is international cooperation. In order to stimulate sustainable tourism growth, the Vietnam government should increase the cooperation with many countries around the world, especially Asian ones. For example, many events were held for the friendship and solidarity of Vietnam and Laos in 2012. To mark the 50-year anniversary of 2 countries’ diplomatic relations and the 35-year signing of friendship and cooperation treaty, Vietnam organized the third Vietnam-Laos friendship festival. In addition, Vietnam has cooperated with Japan tourism authority and will receive 1 million Japanese arrivals to Vietnam in 2015. The 40th day of remembrance of bilateral relationship between Viet Nam and Japan in 2013 in culture, sports and tourism activities is an important landmark for the bilateral tourism cooperation. From these examples, we can see that to improve tourist industry, Vietnam should boost international tourism cooperation with other countries and international organizations, and links our tourism market with regional and world tourism ones. Moreover, Vietnam should expand bilateral and multilateral cooperation relationship to gain the support of other countries and international organizations, accelerate Vietnam’s tourism development and integration, and increase the image and status of Vietnam’s tourism in the international arena.
The second strategy to improve tourism industry is infrastructure development in line with environmental protection. For a sustainable tourism development, it is extremely necessary that the tourism infrastructure system should be invested appropriately. Vietnam opened its door to the world in 1994. Vietnam has a lot of tourism potentials. Vietnam is changing to make tourism better. Vietnam should pay attention to the number of air transport of passengers when the country becomes the favorite destination for international visitors. We should upgrade and expand the system of international airports, increase the well-equipped planes, open new routes to many cities in the world, and increase the quality of the flights to meet the needs of tourists. For example, Vietnam is planning to build Long Thanh international airport with a large amount of capital investment to serve more foreign tourists. In recent years, Vung Tau has been a specific example of developing infrastructure in line with environmental protection. Vung Tau city has measures to conserve the environment. Many hotels in Vung Tau have met criteria on the environmental protection and contributed to saving energy. Furthermore, many tourism areas and hotels in Vietnam should focus attention on investing in standard systems of treating sewage and garbage, clearing beaches, cultivating trees, looking after gardens, and creatingclean environment and beautiful scenery to serve tourists.
The next is human resource development for tourism. Vietnam needs to have some plans to develop human resources for tourism industry both in terms of quality and quantity. The tourism human resources in Vietnam should learn occupational skills and knowledge. They are directly influencing service’s quality, tourist’s satisfaction and the professionalism of the tourism sector. Schools and universities specializing in tourism should develop a network of strong tourism training establishments with modern technical and teaching equipment. The purpose of this training is to build the professional tourism labor force having practical skills and experience to please the tourists coming to Vietnam. Vietnam should diversify tourism professions that will help to increase the tourism workforce and competition with other countries. Reinforcing foreign language for people who work in tourism is a necessary factor to help Vietnam integrate with the world’s tourism industry. In the past, many tour guides couldn’t speak English and other languages, or they only used body language with simple words to express what they wanted to talk about. In a competing environment with other countries, Vietnam should invest in training labor force with ability of communicating with foreigners fluently. Our countries should have many programs about sponsoring the excellent or well-qualified students to study overseas to widen their mind about tourism, which is very helpful for Vietnam. After they have experience of tourism business from many countries, they will contribute what they learn to the construction of nation.
According to the travel recommendation, Vietnam is facing many challenges, fierce competition with countries in the region such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia. On the other hand, the neighbors have very huge marketing investment campaigns in order to increase the attractiveness of tourism market, so the ability to attract tourists in Vietnam becomes more difficult. On July 11th 2012, group of international experts came to Vietnam to assist our country make a tourism marketing scheme and a plan for tourism growth in the future. The experts aided the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) to develop advertising schemes in 3 terms: short, medium, and long. In addition, they helped VNAT analyze information from 7 important markets. From experts’ report on trademark concepts, communication channels, marketing instruments and action strategies. Vietnam acknowledged that advertisement was a key point in developing tourism and increasing the competition in international arena. Vietnam’s tourism industry should have a strategy and clear developing target for marketing activities, and effectively advertise about the diversity of tourism products offered and main tourism areas, prolong the time of visitors’ temporary residence to attract tourists back. Moreover, we should have tourism websites introducing destinations, and expand the system of foreign travel offices to make the marketing better. Vietnam pressingly needs to use many new trademarks and contemporary advertising tools to highlight its tourism image.
With the coastline of over 3000 km, 2700 small and large islands, many beautiful beaches and famous bays, Vietnam has a lot of opportunities for sea tourism development such as Vung Tau, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Ha Long, Phu Quoc, Phan Thiet… From now then on, Vietnam should push beach-island tourism effectively. Sea tourism is considered as a scheme and a strong point in Vietnam tourism. One of well-known destinations that attracts a large number of international tourists is Ha Long bay belonging to Quang Ninh province, and widely known by the beautiful landscape of limestone. Besides, Nha Trang and Da Nang are places having charming beaches on the world. The sea tourism industry attracts approximately 70% of international visitors, 50% of domestic tourists annually, and accounts for 70% of turnovers for the whole tourism. Moreover, Vietnam should focus on building many standardized hotels in coastal regions. It is necessary to organize the sea tourism fair at national and international levels to develop brand and affirm position of Viet Nam sea tourism. Organization of the Viet Nam international sea tourism fair will contribute to promotion of sea tourism in Nha Trang – Khanh Hoa in particular and Viet Nam in general. The growth of sea tourism not only helps people living near the beaches have jobs but also stimulates economic development. In addition, sea tourism of Vietnam should connect with national protection, security, and establish marine tourism areas to be able to compete with other countries.
In the past, Vietnam was a nation having a long period of time in preventing invasion from strong enemy such as China, French, USA; therefore, nowadays, it becomes an interesting places which foreign visitors are curious to discover about its people, custom and culture. This is a good opportunity for Vietnam to develop cultural tourism. We should open many tours to famous destinations that still keep historic landmarks (Cu Chi tunnel, palace of independence) or cities having ancient features ( Hanoi capital, Thang Long citadel, Hue old capital). In addition, many traditional festivals should be encouraged to contribute to introducing the beauty of friendly culture to international friends.
In conclusion, it is forecasted that in the next 10 years, Vietnam tourism industry will continue to grow rapidly. Nevertheless, to encourage the tourism potential of the country, we should know to take advantage of development chances and make good our shortcomings in coming years, which makes tourism play an important part in the national economy.
.
