VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam tourist numbers are growing at a slower rate than other regional countries.

Meanwhile, the number of tourists to Vietnam keeps decreasing, even though it is now the high tourism season. In September, only 294,000 foreign tourists arrived in Vietnam, a decrease of 6.4 percent over August. The number of tourists in the first nine months of the year decreased by 16 percent over the same period of 2008, a more difficult year than 2009.

In fact, Vietnam began taking action right at the beginning of the year to deal with the global economic crisis. The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has joined forces with travel firms to launch big promotion campaigns, offering the 35-40 percent discount rate of tour fee to travelers.

Nevertheless, travel firms say that the tour fee discount is not powerful enough to lure more travelers.

As for foreign tourists, discount are not the most important factor which makes them decide to travel. They travel to the places that attract them, not to the places that offer lower tour fee.

The Vietnam National Tourism Administration (VNAT) believes that the problem lies in the way the tourism promotion campaigns are carried out.

Dr Do Cam Tho from the Tourism Development Research Institute, said that many localities in Vietnam organise culture festivals, but none which really have special characteristics to lure tourists. Meanwhile, elsewhere many festivals, which were initially just local festivals, can well attract travelers thanks to good marketing.

South Korean ginseng festival in October attracts thousands of travelers, while annual French Beaujolais wine festival or Italian chocolate festival lure millions travelers every year. Every year, Nigeria receives hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists who come to attend the Arugungu fishing festival.

Tran Truong Kien, Chairman of Thien Minh Travel Firm, said at a recent workshop on Vietnam’s tourism prospects that Vietnam expects to receive six million foreign travelers by 2010, but it may have to settle for four million.

Thibault Paquin, Asian Development Director of Accor Group, also said plans for receiving six million foreign travelers by 2010 will be fulfilled only if Vietnam can carry out a series of measures, such as building more 3-4 star hotels in secondary cities, putting more international airports into operation and developing more strands of tourism.

Antoine Sirot, an executive of Ethic Consultant, noted that tourism sites can be overloaded sometime and left idleat others, while tourists cannot get best service in the high season.

VietNamNet/NLD