Retail sales were one of the most important benefits of tourism and essential to
boost co-ordination between State bodies in order to design more professional
sales promotion strategies to lure visitors, experts said at a seminar in Ha Noi
yesterday, Nov 19.

Shoppers at Ha Noi’s Vincom City Towers. Tourism could significantly boost local retail sails, a seminar in Ha Noi heard. (Photo: VNS)

The symposium was held
to review the “Impressive Viet Nam Grand Sale 2010″ which was launched to ignite
tourism in August and September in Ha Noi, HCM City and Da Nang. The scheme was
jointly undertaken by the Ha Noi Department of Industry and Trade and the Viet
Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT).

Trinh Thi Hong Loan,
director of the department’s handicraft office, said more than 100 trade centres,
supermarkets and shops in Ha Noi launched sales promotion programmes, including
10 to 50 per cent discounts, gifts and other promotional activities.

As a result, companies
had increased their revenue by 11-170 per cent against the same period last
year.

Deputy Director
General of VNAT Nguyen Manh Cuong said this was the first time the programme had
been held in the capital whereas it was the sixth time the scheme was organised
in HCM City.

The scale of the
programme was much bigger in HCM City than Ha Noi, with the participation of 600
enterprises and 2,200 trade centres, supermarkets and shops, which attracted
45,000 customers and generated a combined turnover of VND300 billion (US$15
million).

“One thing worthy of
consideration is that we should do more to encourage foreign visitors to spend
much more money on shopping.

Because right now,
shopping accounts for only 20 per cent of each visitor’s total spending while
they’re in the country, while in Thailand the rate is 60 per cent,” Cuong said.

The programme should
be expanded to a national scale, experts said.

Luu Duc Ke, director
of the Ha Noi Tourist Corporation, said Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore had
had success with sales campaigns to lure international visitors for shopping
holidays.

“Ha Noi does not have
any national or world-class standard shopping centres, while HCM City has five.
We should build such centres to meet the needs of overseas tourists,” he said.

“We should promote
handicraft sales more effectively because the capital and neighbouring
localities have so many craft villages.”

It would require
tighter collaboration between the departments of tourism, and industry and trade
with People’s Committees, sales agents and other relevant agencies to carry out
the programme effectively, he added.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News