Over the past week, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and Vietnam National flag carrier (Vietnam Airlines) signed an cooperative agreement on promoting Vietnam tourism. 

The following discussion with Mr. Hoang Tuan Anh, Head of the VNAT will discuss more about the issue.

Why did the VNAT and Vietnam Airlines decide to cooperate at this moment?

The cooperation will help to raise the relation between the VNAT and Vietnam Airlines to a new high level. Previously, the two sides coordinated in some fields but the new task is tougher. The proposed target is to pick about 6 million foreign visitors and 26 million domestic visitors by 2010. Moreover, we called upon investors to pour capital into recreation areas.

About 80 percent of foreigners came Vietnam via air. Apart from overseas airlines serving flights into Vietnam, Vietnam national airlines carried about 70 percent of foreign travelers to the country. If making a calculation of 6 million foreigners, about 4.2 million of this will use Vietnam’s airlines. With increasing number of foreigners, we exchanged ideas with Vietnam Airlines to operate more flights and increase frequencies of flight routes.

Over the past time, still few number of foreigners returned to Vietnam, what solutions should be proposed by the VNAT to increase the number of foreigners returning to Vietnam?
To encourage tourists to return the country, some factors should be paid special attention:

Firstly, we will develop more new products. For instance, Ninh Thuan, a destination seems to be a waterless land, but is a sandy dessert of Vietnam where a number of tourists were eager to visit and discover. New tourism products of the province are organizing motor race formula 1, motorbike race, or riding camel to discover the land.

We are coordinating with the Vietnam’s Association of Tourism to create more new tourism products to attract tourists. Particularly, Vietnam’s beaches are in no inferior than that of every country in the world and Danang Beach is one of the six most attractive beaches. In the fourth resolution of the Party Central Committee, sea economy was also focused. The VNAT is currently setting up an action plan to realize the resolution. Secondly, Vietnamese enterprises are popularizing their trademark through promotion activities overseas. At present, numerous fairs are taking place but Vietnamese enterprises rarely join in the fairs. Thus, they are not skilled in demonstration to tug foreign travel agents in taking more tourists to Vietnam.

Thirdly, we will complete traditional products and then will call upon investors to pour capital in hotels and restaurants.

The number of foreigners to Vietnam is still fewer than that of other countries in the region. Some ideas said that without mutual agreement in hotels price is an obstacle. How do you think about this?

The competitive capability of Vietnam’s tourism ranked 87 out of 124 countries but price positioned the 8th place, thus Vietnam’s tourism cost is not high.

We are moving to the market mechanism but mechanism activities do not mean prices to be let drift without the State’s impact. Therefore, we will discuss to have decision on price and will control the ceiling and floor price.

Khanh Hoa province has recently asked the Government’s opinion to perform a pilot project of managing hotel price. The project are being completed and will be submitted to the Government for consideration. If approved, it can be performed on a large scale.

(Source: CPV)