With the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the tourism development strategy for the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) to 2015 has been designed.

Foreign tourists in Vietnam.

The strategy says that GMS countries, including Vietnam, encourage investment in tourism, support community-based tourism, protect natural resources and humanity while developing tourism business and advertising GMS as a common destination.

Vietnam is emerging as an attractive, safe and hospitable destination in Southeast Asia. However, the global economic slowdown and the A/H1N1 pandemic have hit the tourism industry. The number of foreign tourists coming to Vietnam dropped in the first half of 2009.

It is expected that the world economy will recover in late 2009 and early 2010 and the number of tourists will grow again.

To welcome this positive trend, the Vietnamese tourism industry needs to build both short-term and long-term policies.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s Market Department chief Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong disclosed that the marketing plan for the tourism sector in 2010-2015 had been approved.

According to Huong, this plan covers the design of new logos and slogans for the new period; developing tourism products on a wide scale in provinces at risk of great unemployment and developing tourism products in depth in localities in which tourism has developed to a certain level.

The plan also states that Vietnam will attach importance to the international and domestic tourism market but promotion activities will concentrate on the international market, particularly Japan, South Korea, China, ASEAN, India, Australia, Western Europe and Northern Europe.

VNAT will choose 2-3 foreign markets for marketing within 3-5 years to change the images of Vietnamese tourism there. One or two key tourism products will be advertised each year.

VietNamNet/VH