LookAtVietnam – The global market research firm RNCOS has projected that the number of international visitors to Vietnam will reach 5.2 million in four years’ time, with an annual growth rate of 6.5%.

The company’s forecast for this year is the same as the Vietnam National Administration of Vietnam’s (VNAT). Earlier this year VNAT said the country would be able to attract 4.3 million international tourists in all of 2009.

The RNCOS projection means the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam would steadily grow in the four-year period and is described by hoteliers and tourism experts as “exciting” in the current gloomy state of the world tourism industry.

Asked about the RNCOS forecast, five-star Sofitel Dalat Palace’s general manager Tony Chisholm said things and projections could change at a time when the global financial crisis was deepening its impact on the world’s economy and the tourism industry.

Chisholm told the Daily on Tuesday during his business trip in HCMC that it took more than one year for the world to fix the current woes which have resulted in a fall in demand for travel in many countries, particularly the major markets like America and Europe.

He said the current situation would make life much tougher for luxury hotels in Vietnam, whose room occupancy is forecast to fall below 50% between now and October this year, a period which hoteliers often call a “low season for tourism in Vietnam.”

A market survey which the property service company CBRE announced earlier this month put room occupancy at 5-star hotels in Hanoi in the first quarter of this year at an average of 52%, 10 percentage points lower than the year-earlier period.

But, an executive of a 5-star hotel in the capital city told the Daily on the phone on Tuesday that the room occupancy rate of 52% was higher than reality, as the market fell sharply in the period and would continue this trend in months to come.

He blamed the decline on the global crisis which has caused the budgets of both business and leisure travelers to shrink.

VNAT’s figures show more than 992,000 foreigners visited Vietnam in the first quarter of this year, a contraction of 16.1% compared to the same period last year.

Chisholm said the current difficulties made Sofitel Dalat Palace adjust its strategy with a focus shifted to guests in Vietnam and those from regional markets.

Despite tough times ahead, RNCOS still forecast growth in this emerging market for international visitors. “Vietnam’s tourism industry will benefit from the growing attractiveness of the country as a new destination, which has been boosted by its image as a haven of stability in a turbulent region,” the report says.

“Vietnam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Asia-Pacific region,” RNCOS says in the executive summary of the report. It adds that the World Travel and Tourism Council recently named Vietnam as the world’s fourth fastest-growing tourist destination.

However, RNCOS predicted that the increase in the number of tourist arrivals would decline in 2009 due to the global crisis.

According to the company, Vietnam recorded around 4.25 million foreign visitor arrivals last year, up around 2% from 2007. The 2% growth was much lower than that in 2007 when the number of foreign visitors to Vietnam grew 16% year-on-year to reach 4.17 million. In 2008, the country’s tourism industry generated total revenue of more than US$4 billion, according to the company.

The RNCOS report says outbound tourists from Vietnam also reached an all-time high in 2008 when 410,000 people traveled abroad. The country’s outbound tourism achieved annual growth of some 11.6% between 2005 and 2008.

Vietnam’s outbound tourism, according to RNCOS, is expected to register annual growth of 13% in the 2009-2012 period given increasing disposable income and more active operations of low-cost carriers.

VietNamNet/SGT