Peak season for international visitors at the end of the year: What opportunities are there for Vietnamese tourism to break through?

Although the storm and flood situation is affecting tourism activities in some localities and needs time to recover, overall, industry leaders said that there are many positive signs of recovery for the country's smokeless economy in the last three months of the year.

In particular, as the peak season for international visitors is approaching, the tourism industry as well as the locality considered the "locomotive" have made a breakthrough plan for the end of the year to accelerate and finish ahead of target.

Vietnam tourism will regain growth momentum

In recent times, especially after Covid-19, Vietnamese tourism has received the attention and direct guidance of the Prime Minister as well as the participation of relevant ministries and branches, thanks to which the whole industry has gradually recovered. Notably, bottlenecks and obstacles are gradually being removed to help Vietnamese tourism accelerate recovery and development.

One of the most important highlights in this journey is that the Government has had policies to support businesses; localities have invested in building new products and services to meet tourists' needs; a number of policies have created favorable conditions for tourists to travel, especially visa policies, improved conditions on length of stay, etc.

Therefore, in the past 8 months, tourism has attracted over 11.4 million international visitors, with estimated revenue of VND 586.1 trillion. These figures have surpassed the same period in 2019. This is a positive sign in the context of general economic difficulties.

Director of the National Tourism Administration Nguyen Trung Khanh commented: “These conditions are extremely important for the tourism industry to prepare to enter a new phase, accelerate to regain growth momentum as before Covid-19 to achieve the goal of becoming a key economic sector in the future.”

According to Mr. Khanh, although it is the low season for international tourism, Vietnam tourism still has growth in foreign visitors, an average increase of 1.4-1.5 million visitors/month. Preparing to enter the peak season for international visitors (from October to April next year), we have every basis for a stronger growth in attracting international visitors to Vietnam, reaching the target of 18 million foreign visitors, about 110 million domestic visitors, and a total revenue of 680 trillion VND.

To achieve this growth target, Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh said that the National Tourism Administration was assigned by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to preside over research, advise and orient the creation of service products as well as have methods of promotion and promotion, and strengthen destination management.

Orientation on market product development, in the Vietnam tourism development strategy to 2030 also clearly identifies markets, regions, and localities. In particular, the recent planning of Vietnam's tourism system for the period 2021-2030 with a vision to 2045 has also clearly identified the guideline for localities to focus on investing and developing unique tourism products and high-quality services based on their potentials, advantages, and strengths.

Regarding promotion work, the Director said: “The National Tourism Administration has an annual orientation. In addition to the promotion programs of each locality, we also widely notify localities as well as businesses to participate in coordinating with the agency in activities and programs to promote Vietnamese tourism at international fairs and roadshows domestically and internationally…”

In addition, the department also advised the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to directly issue a number of documents requesting state management agencies on tourism and localities to strengthen destination work, ensure security and safety for tourists as well as ensure service quality to avoid unfortunate incidents.

“The Department also coordinates with the Ministry Inspectorate and relevant units to strengthen inspection work, on that basis, promptly make adjustments to ensure healthy tourism activities, ensure quality, and look forward to a successful tourism season in the coming time,” the Director emphasized.

Plan and experience from Da Nang

As a locality that is always at the forefront of tourism activities nationwide, Da Nang has become a model and “locomotive” of the country’s smokeless industry. The experiences of this locality will be spread to help guide other destinations to learn from and promote their own strengths.

Chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association, Mr. Cao Tri Dung, said that up to now, Da Nang has welcomed 7.8 million international and domestic visitors, of which international visitors have welcomed about 2.8 million; revenue is estimated at about 23,355 billion VND. Meanwhile, at the peak of 2019, Da Nang only served about 8.7 million visitors.

This year, Da Nang is expected to welcome 9.8 million visitors, with international visitors reaching more than 4 million. Local industry leaders have high expectations that traditional major tourist markets such as Korea, China, Japan, Southeast Asian markets, India, and Europe will return and all have growth compared to the same period last year...

“With a constantly renewed product ecosystem, many events; a rich, high-class, comprehensive service system, ensuring most of the customers' requirements, we hope that in the last 3 months of 2024 and into 2025, Da Nang will continue to develop sustainably both domestic and international visitors. In particular, we will develop a diverse international visitor flow, a more sustainable visitor structure, develop in-depth tourism types, and exploit new products of Da Nang”, said Mr. Cao Tri Dung.

In particular, the Da Nang tourism business community always accompanies state agencies to implement a series of programs and policies to develop new products as well as stimulate demand and invest in depth in promotion activities in large markets, key markets and long-term markets.

According to Mr. Dung, in the remaining 3 months of this year, the locality will have very deep promotion programs into markets with the ability to recover quickly such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. "We will organize the Da Nang City Tourism Festival from October 17-20. This is an event that connects more than 200 domestic and foreign travel partners as well as more than 500 service teams nationwide to Da Nang," Mr. Dung shared.

Notably, Da Nang tourism businesses regularly promote in-depth on platforms targeting direct customer systems. When customers have fundamentally changed their trends, shifting to self-study, searching for information and booking services directly at the destination, Da Nang has caught up very quickly in changing the way of approaching customers.

“From approaching customers through the intermediary system, still maintaining the intensive form, but now we expand the form of promotion directly to the end customer. With the convenience of destination information as well as the attractiveness, high competitiveness in searching for information and implementing direct service booking, we believe that customers will always return to Da Nang”, Mr. Cao Tri Dung expressed.