Việt Nam: OVERVIEW: Current issues

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OVERVIEW:

Introduction

State management of tourism

Tourism development strategies

Domestic tourism

Training

International exchange

Current issues

In recent years Việt Nam has taken great strides in the development of tourism. However, the country’s tourist sector still faces many challenges, including weak market presence, inadequate infrastructural investment and training programmes of variable quality.

Those working in the sector argue that the Việt Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) must do more to promote the country overseas than just presenting itself at selected international travel trade shows. It is also felt that the VNAT should improve communication with private-sector partners such as international hotels, travel agents and airlines, who for the most part profess themselves to be unaware of the tourism marketing strategy for coming year.

To date, due in large part to high transportation costs (air travel in particular is on average 20-30 per cent more expensive than elsewhere in the region because Vietnam Airlines leases its aircraft), Việt Nam has been unable to develop attractive, reasonably-priced packages to compete with those offered to foreign tourists in neighbouring countries such as Thailand. For this reason the country remains essentially an ‘adventure’ destination enjoyed by backpackers and up-market tourists, with comparatively little on offer to those in between.

At the present time there are some 3,800 hotels in the country, including 15 five-star hotels, 23 four-star hotels and 130 three-star hotels - adequate for current demand, but insufficient to meet the needs of the visitor numbers projected by VNAT. The speed of infrastructural development in regional centres such as Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng and Phan Thiết has been particularly slow. To date France, the USA, Singapore, Korea and a number of other regional countries have invested in the Vietnamese tourism industry, but foreign investment remains limited, with most tourism projects either being funded locally or enjoying indirect financing from overseas Vietnamese investors.

Foreign guests in Việt Nam still spend less than US$450 per person, compared with the global average of US$1,000 per head, mainly because of the generally poor quality of tourist products outside of the two major cities. Just as worrying, the rate of ‘return’ visits to Việt Nam by foreign visitors stands at just 15 per cent, compared with 45 per cent for Thailand.

However, perhaps the most significant issue - the quality of tour guides and other ‘front line’ staff working in the tourism sector - relates directly to the standard of tourism training programmes offered in Việt Nam. Teaching standards vary widely from school to school, and since each training institution has its own programme, there is considerable inconsistency in the curricula and textbooks used. Tour companies claim that tourist graduates are often ill-equipped for the task of working in the sector, the major problem areas being insufficient historical or (in the case of ethnic minority tourism) cultural understanding, inadequate customer service skills and poor language proficiency. The lack of qualified tour guides who speak Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean is of particular concern to the VNAT, given their current focus on this area. For this reason some of the most successful tour guides are still recruited from outside the sector and trained in post.

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