Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung this morning reports at the conference. (Photo: Viet Chung)

According to him, this year’s tourism events have had much appeal, attractiveness and pervasiveness at localities which raise awareness of the society about the role, position and positive contributions of the tourism industry.

In the first ten months of the year, Vietnam welcomed nearly 10 million turns of international visitors, an increase of 4.6 times over the same period in 2022, exceeding the planned target in 2023.

As for the domestic tourists, Vietnam recorded around 98.7 million tourists and total revenue from tourists reached VND582.6 trillion (US$241 billion).

The Ministry of Planning and Investment said that tourism is a bright spot for the country’s economic recovery and has a pervasive impact on many fields as well as contributes to improving investment, export and domestic consumption which are defined as three main pillars of the country's economic development.

Vietnam tourism won 54 Asia Leading awards of World Travel Awards in 2023, notably the categories of the Asia's Leading Destination and Asia's Leading Nature Destination for 2023 which affirmed the brand and position of Vietnamese tourism in the international market.

However, Vietnam’s tourism industry is facing many difficulties and challenges in the current context of the number of international tourists to Vietnam has recovered relatively slowly and do not meet expectations.

The reason is that some traditional key markets have not regained the high growth momentum as before the pandemic occurred; the work of connecting and exploiting new and potential markets is still slow and faces many difficulties; the tendency of choosing nearby destinations instead of long-distance destinations in some key markets of Vietnam; slow connection and restoration of international flight frequencies as before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Besides, inflation, higher exchange rates, political conflicts, decline in tourism expenditures and so on have significantly affected the number of international visitors to Vietnam over passing time.

Moreover, there has been a lack of strict management works for tourism destinations in some localities without decisiveness in promptly handling cases of environmental pollution, waste, overpriced restaurants and so on affecting the image of Vietnam tourism.

Amid the issues, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed some missions and solutions comprising the continuation of strengthening the inter-sector collaboration, studying and proposing mechanisms and policies to facilitate the recovery and development of the tourism sector.

In particular, it is essential to implement short-term visa exemption for some big potential markets such as China, India and so on to stimulate tourism demand, especially during the low season, expand the simple visa exemption for citizens of Australia, Canada, the United States and the rest countries in the European Union and so on.

Besides, it is important to perform the pilot program of granting visas at the border gates for international tourists, granting long-term visas from three to five years to attract advanced travelers and retired visitors.

In addition, it is essential to simplify the procedures of granting e-visa, ensuring the website display which would be simple and easy to show the visa results.

The leader of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that the unit would continue to strengthen the cooperation with countries, territories and international airlines to promote the opening of new air routes and increase the direct flight frequencies to top destinations of Vietnam and key cities of targeted visitors.

Besides, it is essential to promote the collaboration between the aviation sector and tourism under the spirit of “harmonious interest and shared difficulties” to bring long-term interests for all the relevant parties, including the issues of airfares.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also proposed to soon implement the adjustment of electricity price for accommodations being equal to electricity price for production in the upcoming time; extend the value-added tax payment time by 12 months to 24 months; postpone land rental payment time; consider and reduce bank interest rates dedicated for tourism businesses according to the principle that loan interest rates not being higher than three percent compared to deposit interest rates; expand the list of cities piloting night economy development.

In addition, it is essential to soon establish a national tourism council and a national tourism certification committee to implement mutual agreements in the ASEAN tourism profession.

On the other hand, it is important to research and propose policies to support the development of night tourism, rural agricultural tourism, community tourism, sustainable tourism and tourism associated with the cultural industry and creative industry; promote the inter-regional and inter-local collaboration, form value chains, tourism products and build a civilized, safe and friendly tourism environment; connect tours, routes and tourist attractions; invest in development of infrastructure and technical facilities; strengthen human resource training; develop the public-private partnership model in destination management at the regional and local levels.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will also focus on dramatically implementing the tourism promotion programs and accelerating the recovery for international markets to well prepare for the peak period by the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung also said that the unit would continue to implement the project of “Developing tourism human resources to adapt to Covid-19 pandemic impact in the period 2021 – 2030”.

Source: SGGP