In spite of economic difficulties, Vietnam’s tourism is still busy with investment projects. Capital inflows in the local tourism industry still account for 44.7% of total foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) reported that at the end of November, there were 31 projects licensed for hotels and restaurants, with a total registered capital of nearly USD5 billion. Moreover, another 8 projects were registered with an additional capital of USD3.8 billion.

The VNAT said that the country had nearly 10,900 hotels with more than 215,000 rooms until the end of November 2009. These figures include 315 hotels ranked at three to five stars with more than 33,600 rooms.

Although 2009 saw events which affected the sector’s development, localities also enjoyed growth with the country’s turnover of nearly VND70 trillion, an increase of 10% against 2008. This assessment was introduced in a summary meeting about culture, sport and tourism activities in 2009 and duties for 2010 held on December 28th in the central coastal city of Danang.

Figures announced in the summary meeting showed that although the number of foreign tourists to Vietnam reached 3.8 million in 2009, a decrease of 11.5% from the previous year; the country enjoyed a 19% increase, nearly 25 million, in the number of local tourists.

In 2009, Vietnam had two more sites recognized as world’s cultural heritages by UNESCO and 51 sites ranked as national historic monuments by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Moreover, other 10 sites completed documents to submit to the Government for approval as national special monuments.

At present, the sector is attaching much importance to human resources because it suffers a large shortage in the number of management staff. Moreover, expenditures to preserve national artifacts from deterioration is much lower than the real demand such as persistent investments in some sites such as Hoi An Old Town, Hue, and Lam Kinh.

CPV