The tourism industry, after deciding domestic travelers will be the main driving force for the industry’s development, has decided to launch a number of promotional programs to attract more domestic travelers in 2010.

Vu The Binh, director of the travel department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said that the Ministry of Industry and Trade has agreed to cooperate with VNAT to carry out sale promotion programs for travelers who purchase goods and use tourism services. Promotion programs are expected to last two months.

However, Binh declined to give more details about the programs, saying that further details would be provided after representatives from VNAT have meetings with local industry and trade departments of HCM City, Hanoi and Da Nang. These three cities will be key tourism destinations.

 “The promotion programs will be targeting both international and domestic tourists, but domestic tourists will enjoy more benefit,” Binh told Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon on February 2.

 In 2009, when the number of international tourists decreased by 11 percent, the number of domestic travelers increased sharply, which helped the domestic tourism industry to obtain a satisfactory growth rate.

The report released by VNAT at the conference reviewed the “Impressive Vietnam” programme on January 28 in Hanoi, showing that there were 25 million travelers making domestic tours in 2009, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year. Many localities have reported high growth rates in number of tourists and revenue, including HCM City, Nha Trang, Vung Tau, Da Nang, Quang Ninh and Quang Nam.

The results in encouraging domestic tourists have prompted VNAT to focus on pushing up domestic tours, considering this the driving force for development in 2010.

Binh said that the tourism sector has reached an agreement with the national flag air carrier to carry out programs reducing airfares for domestic travelers in summer and the main holidays in 2010.

The ‘Impressive Vietnam’, the tourism promotion program launched to attract more tourists in the global economic crisis, finished at the end of 2009. However, a group of more 40 travel firms in HCM City have said they will still cooperate to attract more travelers. The aim of the group is to create common programs to attract travelers even when the preferences in airfare and other services terminate

 “We have decided to sit together after Tet to discuss measures to reduce the tour cost, develop new tours. We will be trying to take advantages of the service providers in order to offer the best tour fees for clients,” said Tran The Dung, Deputy Head of the group.

VietNamNet/TBKTSG