Language: Vietnamese
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2/ www.ttvnol.com
Language: Vietnamese
3/ Future of Vietnam Tourism
According to Vietnam daily newspapers, 95% tourists visited Vietnam said they dont think they will come back to this S-Shaped country.
How about you, guys?
What MUST the Vietnam tourism department do?
Your solutions?
Below is an article from Dan Tri news (By JC Smith | dtinews.vn)
Future of Vietnamese tourism – malaise or Malaysia?
I’ve always been remarkably sceptical
about Malaysia’s tourist advertising, but it’s managed to permeate the
popular consciousness perhaps like no other country. I bet even now as
I’m speaking you’re humming ‘Malaysia truly Asia…’ and recalling the
rather bland feel-good images from their latest Star World TV adverts.
I got to test the veracity of the
adverts recently when I was invited (against my will you must
understand!), to go on a trip to Malaysia on a Malaysia Tourist Board
press familiarisation tour of the East Malaysian province of Sarawak and
Kuala Lumpur. Now the theory is I’m supposed to use the wonderful
experience to convince you and countless other readers to visit
Malaysia.
But don’t worry I’m not going to do
that. Instead, I came away thinking, ‘well if Malaysia can do that, what
kind of amazing stuff could Vietnam do to boost tourism?’
Quite frankly Vietnam is being undersold by its tourism sector.
I should make it clear I’m not a
tourism industry expert, I’m just some one who loves Vietnam and wants
more people to enjoy their stay here. I ask myself almost daily, often
after reading some new horror story about tourist development plans –
How can we encourage those tourists with bulging wallets and purses full
of tasty hard currency here?
Let’s look at the figures, In 2010,
Malaysia recorded 24.6 million tourist arrivals, in comparison total
international arrivals in Vietnam for 2010 reached 5,049,855, I’m aware
that tourist numbers have increased, but Vietnam still doesn’t meet its
potential.
So how does Vietnam entice this lucrative business? Well for one thing, it needs to loosen up a bit.
In Kuala Lumpur we stayed in a
reasonable hotel located off Jalan Bukit Bintang within walking distance
of the main shopping district. The street included probably about forty
bars, cafes and restaurants which most strikingly stayed open until the
early hours of the morning, raking in thousands of dollars in tourist
earnings. While Vietnam can’t compete currently on the shopping front
(Malaysia began pioneering tax free shopping decades ago), a simple way
of letting the cash flow into the local economy would be taking the
basic step of zoning a part of the country’s city centres for 24 hour
life. When people are on holiday they want to let their hair down, not
get shouted at by a man in a green uniform that they must immediately
leave a bar and go to bed. That contains no form of hidden Vietnamese
charm, nor encourages future visits.
I am interested in history, and I
enjoy visiting historical sites, but actually I’d actually rather see
the original ruins rather than a modern day reconstruction trying to
pass itself off as an ‘ancient’ building. Secondly most tourism sites
are woefully lacking in historical context. Because without any context,
these historic sites, that have witnessed incredible events, remain
just piles of bricks, and everyone goes home none the wiser.
I’m not really going to touch on the
issues of traffic jams, pollution, rip-off taxis, over-charging for
services, different room rates for foreigners and locals and multitude
of other scams. That’s just small beer in the big scheme of things, but
does contribute to why a whopping 95% of foreign tourists (figures from
The Economist 2010) said they would never return to Vietnam.
There are deeper reasons for the turn
off, Vietnam just comes across, as a bit, at least as portrayed by
official tourism PR work, well, as a bit….boring, you’ve done it once,
no need to do it again. Tour operators complain that there’s been
precious little development of ‘new products’ in Vietnam. Plus why does
the country rely so heavily on heritage to sell itself? Check how much
‘tradition’ Seoul and Singapore put into their adverts guys!
Vietnam’s last TV advertising campaign
featured a mid-twenties Western backpacker hanging out trying
streetfood…is that really the target demographic for the Vietnamese
tourism industry? By all means hail Vietnam’s food, it’s likely to
become the ‘next big thing’ internationally, but I would have thought
showing chirpy returning Viet Kieu couples, or nice smiley generic
parents and their two kids experiencing the joys of travelling by
elephant in the Central Highlands or trekking with H’mong kids in the
north west, or even lazing on the beaches of Mui Ne or Phu Quoc as more
appealing images to a general traveller, as not everyone is here to
either soak in Vietnamese heritage, the American War – they’re on
holiday after all!
The single Malay province of Sarawak
alone probably hosts more variety in terms of holiday ‘products’ than
the whole of Vietnam. With a base in Kuching you can do adventure
tourism, indulge in hospitality at the Hilton Hotel, visit an annual
international world music festival and stay with ethnic families, all
along with the usual lazing around and culinary experiences, including
local specialities that originated from the notorious Borneo tribal head
hunters (thankfully no human ingredients included!).
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