The largest-ever Vietnamese tourist promotion, “Impressive Vietnam” jointly organized by Vietnam Airlines and tourist companies to attract foreign tourists, has failed to deliver after just five months.

Saigontourist Company staff welcome foreign tourists at Tan Son Nhat airport, HCM City.

At the outset, Vietnam Airlines (VNA)showed itself as one of the most enthusiastic organizers by providing special discounts to customers who bought overseas and domestic tours.

Unfortunately, most tourism companies and travel agents organizing tours to bring international customers from western Europe, Australia and ASEAN countries to Vietnam have now decided to withdraw from the promotion.

They said that they cannot arrange the tours because VNA cannot say exactly how many discounted seats it can offer to customers on any specific flight.

Tourism companies and travel agents, which organize tours for tourists from Japan to Vietnam, say that they now have to negotiate with VNA to offer discounts on tickets for domestic flights to international customers instead.

They pointed out that offering discounts for airline tickets to flights from Japan to Vietnam does not do any good, as Japanese travel agents often bring their customers to Vietnam via airlines from their own country.

The tourists will only be impressed by the efficiency of the campaign if they pay lower prices for domestic tours thanks to special discounts offered by VNA on domestic flights.

Although the objective of “Impressive Vietnam” is to lure more international visitors to the country so that it can get more foreign currencies, the campaign does not really work as there is not a common voice among VNA and tourist companies.

Latest reports from the HCM City tourism sectyor indicated a fall of 18 percent in the number of international tourists coming to Vietnam, but a positive increase in the number of local holiday- makers taking overseas tours.

According to reports from the Cambodian tourism sector, the number of tourists who went on tour to Cambodia in the first quarter of the year nearly doubled over the same period last year.

Such a fact indicates that foreign currencies are moving from Vietnam to foreign countries through tourism activities while the country is trying to retain them.

In an effort to make the campaign, which will last until the end of September as planned, more attractive, the tourism industry has recently launched another promotion program by waiving visa charges for foreign tourists who come on tours.

No matter how hard the tourism sector tries, said tourism companies and travel agents, the campaign will not work unless VNA fulfils its commitment of discounts for package tours.

Although the campaign is half way through its program, many tourism and travel agents see the campaign as a failure, as it cannot lure international tourists to the country as planned.

“Impressive Vietnam” turns out to be not as impressive to foreign tourists as many expected when they first joined together to design it.

VietNamNet//SGGP